


In the Quiet

by melo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Character Death warning because they're ghosts, Gen, Ghosts, M/M, One-sided Peter/Stiles, Original Character(s), Post-Season 2, Slow Build, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 22:58:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 55,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melo/pseuds/melo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles spends his time loitering around the high school or delivering messages from the dead. There's not much else for a dead teenager to do when he can't even remember what his final meal was. It's not a terrible existence. He gets to see the world and he's got Camden to keep him company, but he's not happy.</p><p>However, this is Beacon Hills and sleeping dogs are never left to lie, and Stiles begins to wonder if his end needs to be as finite as he first believed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They are known by many names.

Some people recognize them as the tingle that creeps across skin, as the flicker in the corner of their eyes or the whisper in the shells of their ears. Some hear them as loud voices in their heads, feel them as the tugs in their gut, or see them in the changes of the tide. Some spot them as the shapes drawn in the clouds and some people sense them as the hesitation that keeps them rooted to the curb, one foot hanging out above the road.

Omens, ghosts, ravens, and even butterflies, they’ve been called a lot of things, but whatever they are said to be, essentially, they are messengers.

He doesn’t know how many of them there are in the world. Maybe many; maybe few. Probably few. He doesn’t know where they came from or how they came to be. He doesn’t even know what they are, exactly. All he knows is that he isn’t alone, that his name is Stiles Stilinski, and that he died in the autumn of his senior year.

  

 

* * *

 

 

“Does it really help?” Stiles asks, his chin propped on his knees, arms hugging his folded legs. He sits huddled on the edge of a fountain, glaring moodily into the wide basin of gently rippling water. Not even the sound of kids laughing on the summer breeze can cheer him up.

“Does what help what?”

Stiles slants his eyes up at Camden. “Does blood help wax your thighs. What the hell do you think I mean?”

“Jesus, the things that come out of your mouth.”

“Are poetry, I know,” Stiles says, squinting at the light reflecting off the water. It’s a habit. The sun doesn’t actually hurt his eyes. He doesn’t actually have eyes. He doesn’t actually have arms or legs either. He’s not even really sitting at the edge of a fountain, except he is. But he isn’t.

It’s all very confusing.

“Well? Does it really help them?”

“Of course.”

“Really?” Stiles’ lips thin, dissatisfied. “You really think a few words can make things better? Mostly not even words, actually, ‘cause seriously: _white noise_. At least you get to forward post cards. Campy and a little inappropriate, but straightforward. Not a lot of room to misinterpret.”

“White noise is classic. Appreciate it, Stilinski.” Camden frowns and takes a minute to actually think about an answer. The soles of his combat boots skim over the water as he swings them back and forth, back and forth.  

“I do think the messages help. Just a little, sometimes, but that little bit can mean a whole damn lot.”

Stiles snorts. “Oh yeah. So much. Except only about one in a thousand can actually sense us, and only one in a million will actually believe us.”

“Stop it. You’re being a bitter shit again.”

“A beautiful shit,” Stiles corrects him. “Critical minds are attractive.”

“Better dial down the beauty then,” Camden teases. “I might be tempted to jump your bones.”

“Good luck finding them.”

Camden chuckles dryly and lies back on the fountain edge. The noon sun strikes the tanned planes of his face, exposing the fine creases in sand-roughened skin and turning the golden cowlicks on his head into a sun-bleached haze.

 “So what if not every message goes through? It’s completely normal. When I first started, it took me forever to figure out how to set the tone _just right_. You’d be surprised how many people think postcards from the dead are a joke.” Camden grins wryly. “And hey, I know a messenger who has to use fuckin’ _tea leaves_. How’s that for the short straw? At least people already think that white noise is creepy. Not hard to annoy ‘em into acceptance.”

“Some people find it therapeutic.”

“Are you talking about white noise or yourself?”

“Shut up.” Stiles sighs. “It’s just... frustrating.”

“How? I leave spooky postcards next to the Frosted Flakes, you whisper creepily through the radio. I think it’s all pretty clean ‘n cut.”

“Yeah, well they read it, or listen to it, and no matter how creepy or obviously supernatural, people just don’t believe this sort of stuff, you know. You should know; you’ve been on the job longer than I have.”

 “It happens, but just think of the ones who do believe.”

“I do.”

Stiles looks across the water to the woman hunched over the fountain edge, feeding scraps of torn cardstock to the ducks. Her hair falls around her bowed head like a curtain hiding the wet trails on her cheeks.

 “I still don’t see how it helps anyone.”

 

 

 

* * * 

 

 

He’s watching some spoiled kid throw a tantrum over his birthday present before he blinks and finds himself in the office.

He calls it ‘the office’ but it’s really just a room, small and barren, lit by a naked bulb and with only a little table and chair ensemble to fill the space. The walls are stark white, the floor bare concrete, and the steel furniture doesn’t add any colour, but it’s his workplace and it’s not like there are posters he can buy for decoration. If he had the ability to change anything about the room, he’d go for some windows first. Or a door. A door would be nice.

“Ladies. Heard you got something for me,” Stiles says to the small array of equipment on the desk. They’re a mismatched heap of retro junk, but he’s not going to tell them that. “Yeah, just make it easy for me, will ya’? I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”

Stiles rubs his hands together before settling into the uncomfortable chair and pulling the old headset over his ears. He slides the stack of manila folders closer and opens the one on the top, skimming the file and message before reaching for the scanner. With a bit of expert tuning he can hear the muffled sobs of a man in his ears. Stiles rests his elbows on the table, hunching over the mike and flicking the switch at its base.

He’s ready.

_“David. David, can you hear me? Can you hear me, David? Listen, your little girl– your little girl’s... She’s fine, you hear me? She’s fine and she wants to tell you something, so listen, David. Just listen...”_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s hot.

Even without a corporeal body, Stiles feels hot. He thought the Californian summer had been warm enough, but the heat in the desert is entirely different. It’s almost menacing in its intensity, as if the sky is a flimsy blue curtain drawn over a horizon-wide spotlight, the sun only a circle cut out of the sky’s fabric, a hole through which that vaporizing fire peeks. He can practically see where the veil shimmers at the edge of the world, the waves of heat rippling under the curtain and crawling over the baked earth.

He thinks he would be very thirsty if he were alive. It’s strange that he knows and understands the definition of ‘thirsty,’ but he doesn’t have the experience to really connect the thought to the feeling. He doesn’t remember what it’s like to be thirsty. The parched throat, the heavy tongue, the thickness of drying saliva, the gross sticking of the inside of the cheeks to the teeth, the hyperawareness to the interior of the body; he can describe what ‘thirst’ is, and he can do it very vividly because he has a large vocabulary, but it’s not the same. He can string together tons of words and the feeling will still be a distant echo of what he’ll never have. 

It’s different with an incorporeal body. He supposes a lot of his senses are the same as a human’s, but dulled. His ability to interact with the physical world is pretty weird, too. Most of the time he can’t touch anything, and he means _anything_. There was one memorable occasion where he stared off into the distance for too long only to find that he’d sunk into the ground, all the way up to his knees. It was fucking scary.

He can interact with the world though. His success just varies. He’s tried moving things with intent, but often his best results are accidental, which blows. He spent a week ineffectively nudging a scrap of paper, only to have it fly across the room when he slammed his head on the desk next to it. The physics don’t really make sense, but Stiles tries not to dwell.

Besides having dulled senses, his body is also pretty nonreactive, so despite the ability to feel that this desert is damn hot, it would probably feel ten times hotter in a living body, and he’d probably be cooking in his skin.

He’s not sweating now, of course, but it seems to him that he was probably the type that sweated a lot. It just fits his shitty track record, short as it may be. After all, he died, and now he’s here, and this is definitely not Heaven. He bets there were times during really hot summers or after really intense workouts where he looked like a bag of fluid leaking all over itself. He was probably the nightmare of the locker room. Any communal showers probably emptied as he approached, for fear that the steam would turn from water vapour into misty sweat. Laundry days must’ve been hell on earth.

He hopes he’s exaggerating, but it’s entirely possible he was that unhygienic kid everyone avoided like the plague. It could be why he was murdered. Camden would probably argue that it was his motor-mouth that got him killed, and Stiles really doesn’t know how such a nice guy can be in such a sad business.

Honestly, though, Camden’s a good guy. Camden’s a good guy and Stiles didn’t tell Camden that he was going to visit the place where Camden died. It probably wouldn’t have gone over very well.

Well, that’s what secrets are for. This little visit will stay between him and the desert.

Stiles takes a deep breath, as deep a breath as a dead guy can take.

There’s a strong gust of wind that rolls over the land in stuttering currents, like a force that’s determined to be continuous, but can’t decide how vigorous it should be. It gives some relief from the heat, but the dust it picks up feels strange in Stiles’ face. It doesn’t hurt and it doesn’t sting, but he imagines this is what rainwater feels like on living flesh. It’s not abrasive. It’s kind of soothing, like the particles of sand dissolve over his skin, splitting smaller and smaller as they strike his incorporeal body before sliding over and through him, reforming into whole grains of the physical world. He barely disrupts the course the wind takes them on. He’s sure that no human eye can catch the disturbance in the air. Not that there’s anyone around.

He might as well be standing in the middle of nowhere. The cloudless blue of the sky is dizzying, swooping over his head and touching down on distant ridges of risen earth. He can’t tell how far away anything is. There’s nothing to give him scale. No trees or buildings, no animals or people. The flat terrain is only broken up by the ridges and the rocks piled here and there, but Stiles can’t tell if they’re actually rocks. They could be boulders. Or maybe even pebbles. He’s having a lot of trouble perceiving depth in this ocean of dry earth.

It’s alright. New. Different. He knows there are people who find this place beautiful, but it’s not his fault he’s not one of them. This isn’t his home, he knows that much. He knows he was never here in life and it’s just as foreign to him now.

He would get lost if he had to find his way back on foot, so there’s the one awesome thing about his blips. He doesn’t know how Camden ever made it out. It’s the type of place where he’d be stuck even if he had a map, and giving him a GPS would probably be as effective as giving him a dowsing rod and telling him to find God. This is the type of place where meanings ascribed by men are quickly forgotten. This is the type of place that devours people and makes them feel small, that reminds them that they’re not as big as they like to pretend, but Stiles doesn’t need reminding.

The desert looks foreign and empty, a barren and lonely place. The heat is scorching and there are no buildings or trees, but for Stiles, it doesn’t feel very different from standing in a city.  _  
_

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s natural. People forget things until they remember. A lot of the time they don’t even notice the information’s missing until someone or something brings it up. Then there’s that moment of _oh right, that happened_.

Stiles thinks he should be having a lot more moments like that, but he doesn’t get anything beyond a nagging familiarity every time he walks up and down the streets of Beacon Hills.

He’s not always in Beacon Hills of course – death is a global phenomenon, and sending messages from the office doesn’t stop him from checking out the client’s place afterward – but he likes to spend his off time patrolling the quiet suburbs.

He tried vacationing in the south that one time he had to send a message to a ride operator in Disney World, but the spinning tea cups and the padded Mickey Mouse costumes really didn’t do it for him. He felt awkward and sticky, somehow overcome with the claustrophobia of too many bodies and the heat of the Florida sun, even though he has no body to hold the discomfort.

He tried somewhere colder, a lodge up in Canada, but it was all very _The Shining_ and he didn’t really want to run into any ghost twins in blue dresses. The wilderness was out of the question. He had enough dogs and cats freezing in place and staring at him like they were shitting themselves. He didn’t need to know if mountain lions did the same thing.

It seems more right in Beacon Hills. Just a little. There’s a cheery park tucked in between a couple schools, and a nearby convenience store that all the younger kids buy candy from when they have the chance. During school hours he loiters in the fields around the high school, kicking litter around and scaring the crap out of the smokers hiding under the bleachers. When the bell rings he mingles with the crowds before setting off down the sidewalk. He likes to pretend that he’s going home.

Camden always gives him a look when he catches Stiles in his routine, like there’s something wrong with him, but Stiles just returns it because Camden doesn’t have a leg to stand on. His days are just as boring, only he stalks the local college.

Stiles never accompanies Camden to the college without an invitation, and Camden has yet to extend one. They’re buddies, but everyone needs some alone time, and Stiles would rather not burn any bridges when Camden’s the only real friend he’s got. Sure, he’s met other messengers that he liked just fine, but everyone’s got their own haunts, places they retreat to between jobs, and Camden is the only other messenger in Beacon County. Even if they don’t have memories to share, they have this little bit of common ground.

The only thing is, Stiles doesn’t know what he’s going to do now that summer is in swing and the schools are out. This will be his second summer, and so far he hasn’t had to deal with an excess of the boredom and purposelessness that grows between jobs, but it’s only a matter of time before he falls into a spiral of depression, if he isn’t already in one.

He’d really like to keep afloat, and while Camden can be a giant sloth who’d rather laze in the sun than listen to the many volumes of Stiles’ existential crises, he has this way of just knowing things, like how Stiles is kind of losing it. Camden’s a lot smarter than he lets on, and he probably has greater focus than Stiles gives him credit for.

Stiles often wonders how similar or different they are from their living selves, if Camden was just as carefree and perceptive or if this is a new thing, a thing that’s only possible because he’s lost his memories. He doesn’t really understand how they can have personalities without memories. He subscribes to the belief that people are made by their pasts, so what does it mean that he’s here without one? Is this the true essence of his person? Some bitter smartass who can’t stop mopping and wondering about the _whys_ and the _hows_ of the world? Or maybe the unremembered past still counts. Maybe the loss of memories doesn’t run as deeply as he thinks.

Sometimes he catches Camden looking at him. He always asks what the look is for, but Camden plays it off as a blank stare into the middle-distance. That’s not what it is though, Stiles can tell. It’s a searching stare, like Camden is looking for something in Stiles. He watches with a caution that Stiles can see but can’t quite decode. Camden looks at him like he’s waiting to recognize something in Stiles, like he’s waiting for Stiles to look back and be... _different_ , and the thing is, Stiles doesn’t understand. Stiles doesn’t know what Camden is wary of, and he doesn’t know what _that_ means either.

It bothers him and makes him anxious, too anxious, so anxious that the edges of his vision go soft and the tips of his fingers go numb and then he has to get a grip on himself before he blips off to god knows where. For this reason, Stiles sometimes wishes he could stop thinking, but there’s not much else to do. His mind won’t stop picking away at all the things he sees around him, until every random cloud looks like skywriting, and every crunch of leaves is a bitten-off gasp of his name. He’s the messenger here, but postal workers can still receive mail.

So Stiles stares back when he catches Camden staring, and he stays where he stays, because despite all his hang ups about an idle mind – a mind free to think itself into oblivion – he’s pretty sure that he’s in Beacon Hills for a reason, and it’s definitely not for the idyllic small town scenery. The town’s cute, but it’s not _that_ cute. He’d say it’s because it’s where he died, but Camden’s proof that they don’t have to haunt their final resting places. Stiles doesn’t know where he came from and he doesn’t know where he’s going, but if there’s one thing that the dead and the living have in common, it’s the mystery of purpose.

“Just let it be,” Camden always tells him. “Let it go.” But Stiles can’t.

Stiles loiters in the lacrosse fields and he wanders through the suburbs. He leaves messages hanging in the airwaves and he waits for a message of his own.

He’s dead. He has all the time in the world.


	2. Chapter 2

The headset is heavy on his skull, uncomfortable and too big. Stiles needs to hold one hand to his ear to keep it in place.

He wonders who made the office, if the office has always been there. He wonders if it has always looked this cold and impersonal, if some other messenger used to sit in the chair he now sits in, if some other messenger used to turn the dials on this same scanner.

A woman is crying in his ear, small choked sobs punctuated by broken words: _Please, God– Please somebody– Please send my baby home, please–_  

He turns the dial.

A young boy is whispering: _I’m scared, mom, why’d you leave me– why’d you go– I’m scared, help me mom– somebody, please help me–_

He turns the dial.

A girl breathes softly in sleep.

Stiles double checks the equipment. He flicks on the mike.

_“Maggie, can you hear me? Listen, Maggie... Listen... Liam wanted to tell you something. He’s sorry he never said anything, but he wants you to know... To him, you were– you are...”_

* * *

 

 

Stiles doesn’t like being inside buildings. He’s voyeuristic enough without stepping behind closed doors. That just seems extra invasive and while there’s really no one around to judge him about it, he judges himself.

There’s a lot of fascinating stuff he could see, he knows, and it’s not like he’s big in the shame department. Still, he would never go out of his way to watch people while they’re naked or taking a shit – something that is not mutually exclusive, Stiles had the bad luck to find out – and there are other moments that Stiles just doesn’t feel comfortable witnessing; intimate moments like pacts of friendship made under the covers of a pillow fort at a slumber party, or the midnight cooing of a mother to her baby, promising protection and love and all the opportunities she never had.

Camden doesn’t care what makes him comfortable or not. For the most part, he lets Stiles get away with hovering outside buildings or watching people stroll through parks like a creeper, but sometimes after a job, he’ll grab Stiles with one of his bear-like paws and haul his ass to wherever.

Today, Camden takes him to the mall.

“Perfect. I wanted to get a new dress,” Stiles says, trying not to stumble while being dragged behind Camden by the collar of his shirt. “I was thinking red. Really brings out the apples of my cheeks.”

“My little lady in red, that’s candy for the eyes,” Camden grins at him, his whole face lit with a childish glee that Stiles hasn’t seen in a while, “but first we’ve got a hot date.”

Stiles plays along, throwing his arms around Camden’s waist and clinging like a limpet, he lets himself get dragged forward by Camden’s freakishly tall body. “Oh, Cammie-bear, you sure know how to treat a girl.”

They finally reach the end of the strip mall where a tiny cafe tries its hardest to be French. There’s faux stonework etched into the crème coloured plaster of the walls, and plastic flowers creep up to the ceiling in carefully arranged tendrils. Picture frames disguised as windows open up onto scenic garden paintings, the window frames bordered by sunny yellow shutters and underscored by window boxes filled to bursting with bright pink flowers that might actually be real. More potted flowers fill the corners of the cafe and every other available space. Each table top has its own flower tucked into a little white vase and Stiles thinks the air must be pungent with the sickly sweet smell of so many flowers. The cafe is halfway to becoming a florist’s.

Stiles immediately picks out one patron who seems to agree, if the way his nose wrinkles says anything about his opinion. It could just be because of the heavy scent of flowers though; the guy looks like he’s part puppy. He’s got the eyes – big and blue and watery enough to start the undead’s heart – and his hair is a mess of curls that Stiles is tempted to rub his cheek against. He’s not going to, obviously, on the off chance that he actually disturbs a single hair on the guy’s head. Stiles is very against frightening or harming puppies and puppy-like beings.

There’s something else about him, too, beyond the face that just begs for a round of cheek-pinching. He looks a little familiar. He also looks a bit constipated.   

“Am I the other woman?” Stiles asks. He feels a little weird, openly staring at the guy while surrounded by people. It must be residual embarrassment, and he resists the urge to hide behind a pot of flowers. They’re invisible. He could do a rain dance on a table top and no one would notice.

Camden laughs, a big full-lunged laugh that seems to fuel the sunbeams shooting from his face. “You’re the only one for me. There’s my brother.”

“You have a brother?” That’s news.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Camden sounds as surprised as Stiles feels.

“No.”

“Oh,” Camden says. Stiles understands his confusion. Camden seems like the type that would carry around a wallet full of his little brother’s naked baby photos to show every person whom he meets. “Well, his name’s Isaac.” Camden gives him a look, like the name’s supposed to mean something.

“Isaac, huh?” Stiles says. He’s pretty sure Camden’s never mentioned him before, but that explains the familiarity of his appearance. They’re standing just inside the cafe, so Stiles has a clear view of Isaac’s lanky frame hunched over the spindly cafe table. He can see a resemblance in the long lines of their bodies and the sharp angles of their faces, but Camden is much bulkier and his face is nowhere near as cherubic. “He’s a lot cuter than you.”

“It’s over, Stilinski.”

“Baby, don’t be like that.”

Camden playfully shoves his shoulder, sending him tripping through some lady’s paper-white calves. Both Stiles and the lady wince, no doubt experiencing mutual chills of discomfort. The lady looks around for the source of the sudden cold spot and Stiles rubs at himself, trying to scrub himself clean. He always feels so dirty when he passes through a living body. It’s just gross. 

“Sorry,” Camden says, completely insincere and not even caring, “but seriously, check this out. Here comes Isaac’s date.” Camden points out a girl approaching Isaac’s table. The girl is tall, only a little shorter than Stiles, with long mousy brown hair and similarly long and frail looking limbs. However, her clothing belies her build, the varsity Rugby shirt daring anyone to say she can’t kick their ass. Her face only cements the contradiction, the delicate heart-shape of it hardened by the blue of icy eyes. She’s pretty in the way that giant deadly icicles hanging above one’s head might be pretty.

“Holyshit, that’s Isaac’s date?” Stiles’ question is answered for him when the girl sits down across from Isaac. No wonder Isaac looks constipated. He’s going to be a freezer-burned slab of meat within the hour.

“Yup. That’s Jenny. Isaac asked her out a couple days ago.”

“Isaac asked her out,” Stiles repeats dumbly. This is the first time he’s laid eyes on either of them, but he’s having a hard time believing what he’s seeing.

“Yup.”

“And you’re sure this isn’t some sort of blackmail situation?”

“Like I said, Isaac’s the one who asked her.”

“Is he, like, a masochist?” Stiles winces at the picture they make. Isaac and Jenny look more like they’re in a duel at high noon than a date. The tension is so thick around them that Stiles is surprised their waiter is able to reach their table to take their orders. “Dear God, she looks like she’s going to rip his balls off, and not in a good way.”

“There’s a good way?”

Stiles doesn’t reply because Isaac finally opens his mouth to say something. He actually opens his mouth and then closes it several times before the words manage to crawl their way out. “So... Hey. Jenny,” Isaac says mildly. Isaac nods at nothing. He swallows and leans back in his seat with his legs kicked carelessly out, his eyes hooded and his hands tucked in the pockets of his leather jacket. It’s only then that Stiles realizes Isaac’s slouch is a really poor attempt at nonchalance. Isaac’s lockjaw is a try at playing it cool.

Stiles really does hide behind a potted plant this time. He puts a hand over his eyes for good measure. “Oh my God. What is he doing? He looks like such an asshole.”

Camden only seems fascinated, like a rubbernecker at a terrible car wreck. “He tries so hard to look dangerous,” Camden says absently.

“Dude, there is no looking ‘dangerous’ next to that chick. In fact, I bet ‘Jenny’ is short for ‘Genuine,’ followed by the surname, ‘Danger,’ because, Jesus–”

“He can handle himself.”

“I’m sure.” Stiles sneaks a peek between his fingers and watches the waiter set two cups of coffee and a couple pastries on the table. The situation doesn’t change after the waiter leaves. Isaac continues to play at too-cool-for-school while Jenny does a fine imitation of an ice sculpture. “Do these smooth moves run in the family?”

“If they do, I’m glad I can’t remember.”

“Seriously, who does he think he is?” Stiles shakes his head. The silent hell-date is slowly eroding the cafe’s cheerful atmosphere, but Camden hasn’t moved from where he’s leaning next to Stiles. “You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m his brother. It’s my right.”

“Not if you can’t remember being his brother.”

“I can imagine.”

At the strange note in Camden’s voice, Stiles looks away from the awkward couple. Camden’s profile is sharp, backlit by the brighter sunshine that illuminates the front of the cafe. His eyes are still fixed on Isaac and Jenny and there’s a smile on his lips, but he looks undeniably wistful.

Stiles clears his throat and looks away. “So are we just going to watch him suffer?”

“No.”

“Huh, that’s nice of– oh...” Camden steps forward and casually tips Isaac’s mug over while Isaac’s stirring. Isaac catches it before it can empty its contents all over the floor, but some still splashes onto the table. “Why would you do that?” Stiles gapes at Camden. “ _How_ did you do that?”

Camden ignores him and Stiles can only watch as Isaac starts spouting apologies, his hands patting around for a napkin and coming up with one from his jacket pocket. Of course, a single napkin isn’t enough to clean up the mess and Isaac leaves the napkin soaking up the puddle as he goes to get more napkins.

“I don’t see how this is help...” Stiles shuts up. There’s a blue patch on the napkin that is slowly blooming as it absorbs more spilt coffee. He’s not the only one who sees it. Jenny leans forward, curious, and carefully pulls at the corners of the napkin until it’s safely out of the coffee puddle. She then peels the napkin open to reveal smudged words written in blue pen.

It’s at this point that Isaac returns with a handful of fresh napkins in one hand. His eyes pop when he sees what Jenny is looking at and he immediately tries to turn back, but Jenny’s sharp, “sit,” stops Isaac in his tracks. He sits obediently. 

Jenny reads the words on the napkin, her face an impassive mask while Isaac starts poking at the food, his rising anxiety apparent in the accelerating disintegration of the pastry. “It’s,” Isaac starts. He grimaces at the flakes on his plate. “It’s a poem. About you.” Isaac puts his fork down, his neck flushed red. “I... I know you don’t think much about me, but I... I like you. Really, and I... I’m sorry. This was a bad idea. You weren’t supposed to see that–”

Isaac stands and reaches across the table to take the napkin, but Jenny stops him again. “Sit,” she says, and holds the napkin out of his reach. She waits for Isaac to take his seat before she says, “Why a poem?”

Isaac hesitates. “Like I said, you weren’t supposed to see that–”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It was... a friend’s suggestion. He said I should try poetry.”

“I see.” Jenny glances back down at the napkin. “This is really bad, you know?”

“Yeah,” Isaac ducks his head; the red flush has reached his scalp. He twists the fresh napkins in his hands.

“Write me another one.”

Isaac nearly upends the table. “What?”

“You heard me. You have that whole stack of new napkins. I have a pen. Write me another.” The corner of Jenny’s mouth is tipped up in a sly smirk. “Practice makes perfect.”

Isaac stares at Jenny, his mouth hanging open, but Stiles doesn’t get to hear his response. Camden has him by the elbow and is dragging him out of the cafe.

“Hey, where’re we going? Don’t you want to see–“

“No,” Camden cuts him off. Stiles stares up at Camden and is shocked to see reddened eyes and blotchy cheeks. Camden’s breath is ragged and a vein stands out on his forehead like the pressure has built up inside of him, threatening to crack his skin. “No. I shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be here. God, Stiles, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, big guy. Hey.” Stiles pats the hand wrapped around his bicep, confused. “We can go somewhere else. We can go anywhere.”

Camden laughs, a harsh bark so different from just half an hour ago. “No, we can’t; we won’t. We’re too stupid for that.”

Stiles doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t know what Camden means. He lets Camden pull them away from the cafe, only turning his head once to catch a glimpse of Isaac shyly writing on a napkin. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some borderline bad-touch. You'll see why, but it's nothing below the belt.

This is how he learned his name:

There was a town-wide blackout one night. Later they would say it was caused by some college science project gone wrong, but at the time the cause mattered less than the result.

For a dead guy, he isn’t a big fan of darkness. So what if he likes sunshine and puppies and rainbows more than doom and gloom? There’s nothing wrong with that. He just doesn’t like the dark and he would spend those early, nameless nights hovering outside the sheriff station.

It was his chosen location because he could count on it to always have its lights on. Businesses closed shop and turned out the lights, households went to bed and turned out the lights, and streetlights would often flicker and die if he stood next to them for too long, but the sheriff station was always bright. The desk was never left unmanned and the two large bulbs that guarded the entrance seemed impervious to his supernatural interference.

Since the blackout happened late at night, it mostly went unnoticed, but he noticed, and so did the deputy on duty. He watched through the window of the station as the deputy swore up a storm when the generator didn’t kick in right away. The deputy tried switching on a flashlight, and when that didn’t work, he left the desk to suss out the problem, confused but mostly annoyed.

It was different for him. He didn’t have any patience for the dark at all. It was a new moon and cloudy besides. There was no light to be seen in the streets or on the horizon or in the sky. It felt like his throat was closing up, surrounded on all sides by darkness, so he shut his eyes seeking the nearest source of light, and when he opened them he was still in the dark.

Then there was the soft snick of a match being struck.

In the light of the little flame he could see that he was in a small office. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was inside the sheriff station, and when he did, the panic of being unable to see the sky warred with the comfort of the flame’s tiny glow.

He watched as the man – the sheriff – holding the match lit the wick of a small candle before shaking the match out and dropping it in a mug on the desk. In the dim orange candlelight, the sheriff looked exhausted like he hadn’t left the office in days. The rumpled uniform hung on a bony frame and deep creases hollowed his face, making him look much older than his strong hands suggested.

The candle didn’t provide much light at all, but that didn’t discourage the sheriff from sitting down behind the desk and continuing with his work.

“You’ll strain your eyes,” he said to the sheriff, but obviously he wasn’t heard. The sheriff only slid the candle closer and hunched over his papers. He looked so tired.

He watched the sheriff work by candlelight for about an hour, but the lights showed no sign of coming back on despite the deputy’s best efforts, and the sheriff was too immersed in his work to notice.

Eventually, the strain on the eyes did seem to affect him and he rubbed roughly at his sockets with the heels of his palms.

He thought the sheriff would call it a night, then, but the sheriff only swept the files on his desk off to the side before pulling out a new folder and – after a moment of hesitation – a flask from inside his desk.

This folder was different from the ones that he’d just been looking at. This folder was much thicker and much more worn, the spine reinforced by duct tape and the papers inside gone soft from human hands. This file was clearly older, but like the man handling it, the aged appearance was probably deceptive.

The sheriff took a shuddering breath before uncapping his flask and taking a long swig.

“Sheriff Stilinski,” he read from the placard on the desk. “Sheriff, don’t. Just go home. It’s late, you’re exhausted. Just go home.”

Again he went unheard. The sheriff opened the heavy folder, his lips thinning and his eyes squeezing shut as he did so, like that simple action hurt.

He didn’t look at the open file because he couldn’t look away from the sheriff. The sheriff didn’t look at the file either, but somehow he knew it was because the sheriff had it memorized. The sheriff’s eyes stayed closed. His hands wiped over his face and covered his mouth.

“Stiles,” the sheriff whispered into his cupped hands. “Stiles, where are you?”  

 

 

* * *

 

 

For a small town, Beacon Hills is pretty big.

It’s got its fair share of landmarks, though they might only be considered landmarks by the residents. There’s the town hall, a fairly impressive library, and a couple decent strip malls. There’s a diner that everyone seems to pass through at least once a week, a pub and a couple clubs, and a video rental place that would be going to shit if not for that one guy who keeps renting _The Notebook_. There’s also that gas station that, if asked, Stiles would swear is the only gas station in town, and it’s not even really _in_ town. More like at the outskirts.

Then there’s that burnt out house, but Stiles avoids it for the same reason he left _The Shining_ Lodge. Not that ghosts are common, because they’re really not. He’s never met one, and he doesn’t even accept the traditional definition for ghosts. That’s not what he and Camden are, even if Stiles gives in to the urge to do some ‘haunting’ every now and then. They’re so much more than just dead people. They’re _messengers_ , and it’s not like they even _remember_ what it really means to be ‘people.’ So he avoids the burnt house, but he enjoys the preserve it’s nestled in.

 It’s nice to walk the trails alone sometimes, as long as he doesn’t scrutinize the wildlife. He doesn’t have to be awkwardly aware of his deadness like he is when he’s surrounded by people, and the rodents might freeze in his path, but as long as the birds keep singing he doesn’t give a fuck. As far as he’s concerned, he’s just some kid communing with the trees. It’s nice.

He doesn’t often go for a run, but when he does, it’s bright and early as if he went to bed during the night and woke up for a morning jog. He doubts he was so well adjusted in life, but he doesn’t need sleep and he doesn’t need rest, so running feels more freeing than anything. He would be mistaken for the wind if he ever came across a jogger, and in those early hours it’s a perfect representation of how he feels. Gravity seems to have no hold on him, tree roots seem to slide out of his path, and the thin branches he runs past give him endless high-fives. It feels like he belongs to the forest.

It’s on one of these runs that he meets Peter.

Stiles is running on the path, trying to bypass the burnt house as quickly as possible when a man on the porch waves at him.

Stiles is so shocked that he stumbles and ploughs into the dirt, his head and shoulders phasing through the earth for five terrible seconds before he claws his way back up, gasping as though he needs air. He spends the next few seconds feeling silly, because the man on the porch probably wasn’t even waving at him. He’s pretty far from the house and there are all sorts of leaves and trees obscuring his view, so either there’s a jogger somewhere nearby or it must be a trick of the light. The most shocking thing about the scene should be that there is anybody at all visiting the husk of a house.

Stiles gets up, brushing imaginary dust off of his imaginary knees, but almost sinks into the earth again when he hears someone speaking over his shoulder.

“Well this is a surprise.”

Stiles spins around to see the man standing right behind him and – clearly – speaking to him. “How– What– You can see me?” Stiles sputters. “You can hear me?”

“Of course.” The man smirks, seeming to enjoy the gobsmacked expression that is undoubtedly on Stiles’ face. “Death does that to a man.”

“Oh,” Stiles breathes, understanding. He tells himself his shoulders only drop because he’s relaxing. He isn’t disappointed at all. “I haven’t seen you around before. Are you... new?”

The man tilts his head and studies Stiles curiously. “I’m Peter,” he says.

“Hi, Peter,” Stiles says. He sticks his hand out uncertainly. He’s still not sure if there’re customs for introductions between dead people. “I’m Stiles.”

Peter breaks into a wide grin, his eyes twinkling, and Stiles never thought he’d be able to describe someone as having eyes that _twinkle_. Stiles tries not to notice how many teeth Peter’s grin reveals. “Hello Stiles,” Peter says, clearly amused as he shakes Stiles’ hand.

A chill races down Stiles’ arm at the feel of Peter’s skin against his own. It’s the same sort of feeling he gets from the burnt house. It’s that same cold prickle he felt at _The Shining_ Lodge, and Stiles has to fight the instinct to snatch his hand back.

After the bare minimum of time required for an appropriate handshake, Stiles clumsily pulls his hand away and hides it in the pocket of his hoodie. “So,” Stiles says, trying to cover his nerves, “you never said, are you new?”

“No,” Peter answers. He doesn’t say anything about Stiles’ odd behaviour. Maybe he didn’t notice. “I’ve been around for a while.” He jerks his head towards the burnt house, indicating his haunt.

“Is that where you died?” Stiles asks before he can stop himself.

“Yes.” Peter doesn’t seem bothered by the question, and Stiles is glad. Not everyone is touchy about the subject, but the ones who are, are _very_ touchy. “Where did you die?”

“In the forest, I think.”

“’You think’?”

“Yeah, I can’t be sure, right, ‘cause I don’t re–” Stiles stops, replaying Peter’s puzzled tone.

“You... You know how you died?”

“By fire,” _obviously_ , Peter doesn’t add, though his eyes roll in a way that would be insulting if not for the quirk of his lips.

“Yeah, okay, I mean,” Stiles pauses, fishing for a better way to phrase it but coming up short. “You _know_ how you died? You remember it, all of it?”

Peter has a calculating look in his eyes, and Stiles can’t help but feel like a lab specimen under observation. “All of it,” Peter agrees, the words slow and weighted. “But you don’t remember, do you, Stiles. You don’t remember anything.” It’s a statement and Peter sounds almost wondrous, and Stiles nods because Peter’s right. He doesn’t remember anything and he tries not to let that make him feel uncomfortable under Peter’s scrutiny.

Peter steps closer and that instinct that tells him to run acts up again, but Stiles ignores it. He shuffles his feet and chews nervously on his lip. His fingers pick at the loose threads inside his hoodie pocket and he tells himself that he’s being paranoid. _The Shining_ Lodge was just a lodge, the burnt house is just a burnt house, and this man is just a man. A dead man, certainly, but that’s the only kind of man Stiles talks to nowadays. Stiles isn’t going to run off just because he’s a little chilly. There are long smothered questions bubbling up in response to this strange man who has what so many others of their kind do not: memories.

“How? How can you–? I... I woke up and I was,” _empty_. Stiles swallows the word, but Peter seems to know what he meant to say. Even though their experiences must have been different, Peter nods in sympathy. From this close, Peter’s eyes look huge, and Stiles’ vision can’t quite focus. “How can you remember your death? How can you remember your _life_?” Stiles almost salivates forming that one syllable. _Life_.

“It’s not as hard as you’d think. You only need to try,” Peter says. Stiles doesn’t know when Peter got so close, but Peter is a dark blur, the heat of Peter’s body contrary to the shivers that his proximity sends through Stiles’ bones. He can practically feel the rasp of their jaws brushing together as Peter whispers into his ear. “You only need to _want_.”

They’re standing too close. Stiles should feel uncomfortable. Stiles should leave. But he doesn’t.

“I have tried. I do want,” the hushed confession seems to seep from between his ribs, “but I can’t remember. I _can’t_.”

And there is the source of so much of his discontent. He hasn’t lied to Camden, it’s true that he’s not fond of their job, but all he’s ever complained about is the job. They’ve never really talked about what it means to be dead. They never talk about the ache that grows and grows, the pain that comes from watching a world that didn’t stop for them, a world that never will. They never talk about what might have been, and Stiles understands that it’s all useless conversation – that guessing about their pasts and what they’ve lost would do nothing for them – but it’s so goddamned lonely.

Stiles understands now that Camden watches the college for Isaac, and his own motivation for watching the high school is obvious, but they never acknowledge what they’ve lost. They pretend that things began with the end, and while that’s poetic as fuck, it doesn’t fill the hollows of his being. The craving remains, the endless, growing ache.

“Let me help you.” Peter smiles. Stiles can hear it in his voice. Stiles can feel the curve of Peter’s cheek against his own. It’s a cold burn and something tells Stiles that he should be afraid, but the sensation is just so intoxicating. In all his remembered time, Stiles has only felt Camden’s friendly pats and the uncomfortable void of passing through living bodies. Those touches are nothing compared to this. For the first time in a long time, Stiles feels like he _exists_.

“I don’t even know you.” Stiles can barely think. Peter’s hand is cupped against the junction between his neck and shoulder.

“Why would that be a problem?”

Stiles doesn’t have an answer. What passes for his heart is beating too quickly, faster than a rabbit’s, he thinks, and if he actually needed air he would probably have blacked out by now. It’s overwhelming.

“I can help you remember,” Peter says, his words coiling in Stiles’ ear. Peter’s hand slides up and comes to rest under the corner of Stiles’ jaw. “In fact, I can do you one better.”

Stiles wonders if spirits can have out-of-body experiences when they don’t have bodies, because that’s how Stiles feels right now. It’s like he’s floating and only Peter’s hand is keeping him steady amidst a storm of impressions. Conversely, he feels more in touch with the world than he ever has, more aware of the faraway chirp of birds and the whistle of the summer breeze, more aware of the grit of dirt beneath his sneaker and the slant of sunlight between leaves. It’s one more contradiction to add to the list that tortures Stiles in his spare time, but he can’t bring himself to think about that. He exists in the present, a vast consciousness, and that is how he hears a voice calling for Peter in the distance, much farther than he thinks he can normally hear.

Before Stiles can gather the coordination to question what’s happening, Peter draws back. He slides fluidly away, as if the encounter never happened, and Stiles watches his own hands reach clumsily for Peter, reluctant to let him go.

“Wait,” Stiles croaks. “Wait, what do you mean?”

Peter is walking away and Stiles stumbles after him as if chained. Peter brushes low-hanging branches out of his way and steps soundlessly across the dirt, cutting a gracefully efficient path out of the forest and into the clearing of the burnt house.

There is a man standing by a car, muscled arms crossed over a powerfully built chest. The man calls Peter’s name again as Peter breaks from the trees, Stiles right behind him.

“Boyd,” Peter greets coolly.

 Boyd is frowning. His eyes glance suspiciously over Peter’s shoulder. “Talking to yourself now, I see.”

Peter smiles.

Stiles is barely aware of Boyd hustling Peter into the car. He stands frozen in the clearing as the engine starts and the car slowly rolls out to the road. The air is a thick and unmoving cloak. He cannot hear the birds or the rustle of leaves. The sun’s glare reflects harsh and white from the dry and exposed earth. It is like his chest has been punctured and he is being drained from the wound, but Stiles is numb to it. There is only the hot-cold brand of Peter’s hand on his neck. It is a throb. It is a pulse.

Stiles’ mouth seems too full to form words, but his lips move on their own.

 _Life_.


	4. Chapter 4

It was winter when he first awoke.

The first thing he saw was the moon, full and bright and criss-crossed with the silhouettes of spindly branches far above him.

He wasn’t in danger of exposure or starvation, but it’s not easy to wake up in the middle of a deep, dark, wood with no idea of who you are. He wandered for a long time, not knowing where he was going or what he was doing. He was alone with only the trees standing sentinel over him and he was scared. He felt like the dark was closing in on him and no matter how fast or how far he ran, he would never escape.

All he wanted was to go home, even though he didn’t know where ‘home’ was. It never made sense to him how he could want so badly to go somewhere he couldn’t remember.

During those first nights he would fade in and out despite his efforts to stay in one place. Between blinks he would travel whole stretches of forest and that only made the breath catch harder in his incorporeal throat. Every blink of his eye was an ordeal that put him on the edge of panic. He kept thinking the next blink would be his last; not understanding that his eyes had fallen shut long ago.

Time passed but he didn’t see daylight. He didn’t sleep, but he knew he was losing time because he could mark its passage in the changing shape of the moon above. The orb of the moon disappeared slowly like the night was eating it up, bite by bite. It didn’t ease his fears of disappearing, and the worst night was the night of the new moon.

It was darker than he thought possible and he wanted to scream, just to hear his voice and know that he still existed; only he couldn’t. During all that time in the woods he hadn’t made a sound, and on that night when he opened his mouth to call for somebody, anybody to hear him, he couldn’t. He had no lungs to hold air and no air to carry sound. He made no noise and that night passed as those before: he, alone, stifled in the dark.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They’re in the middle of the college campus, sitting on a small plot of poorly kept lawn that’s boxed in by several paved walkways. The sun shines brightly above them, making the air shimmer with the strong heat of a particularly long summer. A few birds peck lazily at the litter dotting the grounds and one squirrel darts skittishly up and down a tree. Stiles fits in well enough with his surroundings, his hoodie and jeans not entirely out of place, if a little thicker than summer wear should be. Camden sticks out like a sore thumb, his dusty military fatigues making him look like a dead patch on the grass. Of course, none of that matters to the few summer students who walk by. They can’t see Stiles or Camden.

“This one’s kind of funny,” Camden says, showing Stiles the face of a new postcard.

_Hello from A-Rock_ , the postcard proclaims. The font is large and ugly, tucked into a corner over a picture of a flat and dusty desert. The featureless terrain is interrupted by a pebble.

“That’s bad,” Stiles says, shaking his head, “really bad.”

Camden stuffs the postcard back into his pocket. “Hey, I’m not the one who makes them. I just deliver.”

Stiles snorts. “Well you could be a little more professional,” he says before he’s caught by a sudden thought. “Can we get naked?”

Camden jolts upright, his hands flying out to stop him from falling back onto the lawn. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, _can we get naked?_ Like, have you ever tried taking off your clothes?” Camden looks at him like he’s lost his mind, but Stiles is on a roll. He feels like there’s a factory packed full of hamsters inside his head, all of them running full speed in their wheels. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m serious. Just think about it, why do we even have clothes? Did our clothes die when we died? _No_ , so why do we have clothes? Can they even really be called clothes? I mean, we don’t really have bodies, so we don’t really have clothes, and I’ve been thinking our bodies are probably manifestations of our minds, in which case, is it our minds that also model our clothes? Does that make the clothes a part of us? Why these clothes? Are they the clothes we died in? If they are the clothes we died in, then that means we must, somehow, _know_ our deaths, and if that is true, what else do we know? God, there are so many implications that–”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Camden groans, his hands trying to fold his ears closed, “just shut _up_.”

Stiles’ jaw snaps shut with a click. Normally, he would go right on talking, but nothing has been normal since the cafe. Camden doesn’t look like he’s annoyed. Camden’s eyes are squeezed shut as if he’s in actual pain, his mouth twisted and revealing the point of a canine. There are dark smudges beneath Camden’s eyes that weren’t there before, and that makes Stiles want to throw forth another volley of questions about how their not-bodies imitate real-bodies, but he holds back. Barely.

After a few tense moments of silence, Camden calms. He releases his ears and affects a more casual posture, leaning back on his arms. The lines between his brows remain, but Camden flashes Stiles a forced looking grin. “How did you go from _professionalism_ to _nakedness_ , anyway?”

“I just. I thought, you know.” Stiles unfolds and refolds his legs a couple times, but the lawn feels bumpy under his ass no matter how he sits. “Uniforms can boost professional morale. So, like, uniforms, except can we actually, because _clothes_ –”

“Okay, you can stop there.” Camden lies back on the grass again, clasping his hands behind his head as a pillow. He bends one leg and lifts the other to rest his ankle on the knee, leaving his foot free to bob in the air to some unheard tune.  

Stiles quietly watches Camden sink into artificial peace. He combs his fingers through the dry grass in front of him and tries to grip the blades between his fingers. He wants to tear the grass up and throw the pieces at Camden. He wants Camden to sputter on grass-bits in his mouth and scowl at him, and he wants Camden to retaliate by tearing up the cheap sod and throwing the whole roll at him. He wants to be immature and destructive, and he wants the shadows to leave Camden’s eyes, but his fingers pass harmlessly through the dry blades without even a rustle.

“I’ve never been to the college before,” Stiles says when the silence finally becomes too much.

Camden hums distractedly. “Why not? I thought you’d popped in to visit everything in Beacon County at least once by now.”

“No, never here...” Stiles traces the silver chain of Camden’s dog tags with his eyes. The chain disappears under his shirt and Stiles tries to cap the theories his brain wants to spit out. “This is kind of _your_ place.”

“ _My_ place.”

“Yeah, _your_ place. And I didn’t get it before, but I get it now.”

Camden’s eyes catch Stiles’. “What are you talking about?”

“Isaac.” Stiles hurries to explain when Camden frowns. “I mean, it’s obvious. You hang out here because Isaac goes here, right?”

“You don’t think maybe I used to go here?”

“Well, I guess you could’ve, but I’m right, aren’t I?” Stiles doesn’t need to examine Camden’s expression closely to know that he’s right. Camden isn’t denying it, and it’s clear in the sombre line of his lips. Stiles thinks it’s strange, how just a couple of days ago just talking about Isaac had made Camden’s face nearly crack with the width of his smile. And Stiles has only known about Isaac’s existence since the cafe, but somehow he’s sure that Isaac had always been the source of Camden’s happiness. Before.

Stiles shrugs. “So... do you follow him home, too, or–”

“You make it sound like I’m stalking him–”

“Which you kind of are.”

“–but it’s not like that. I just worry about him. I don’t really remember, y’know, being his brother... but it’s enough, just knowing he is. My brother...” Camden sighs and pulls his hands free from under his head. He lays them at his sides and slides his fingers through the grass, creating neat furrows like the rows in a farmer’s field. “I think the better question is: why don’t you follow your dad?”

It’s reflexive, how Stiles’ head snaps away on its own. There’s a seagull standing at the edge of the walkway with its head stuffed into a small Fritos bag. Stiles stares at it as it shakes the bag off with something like disgust before delving into a nearby Cheetos bag. “What was that the other day? In the cafe. I’ve never seen you get so,” Stiles swallows, “worked up. You were crying–”

“No I wasn’t.”

“–practically crying. That’s– wasn’t it... Wasn’t it a happy occasion? I was expecting, I dunno, bro hugs or a fist bump or some more terrible brotherly trolling. Not,” Stiles makes some sort of gesture with his hands. He’s not even sure what it’s supposed to mean, but he’s got nothing better. “And. And you said ‘sorry’? And, I don’t get– what were you–”

“Stop.” Stiles startles and looks away from the seagull that is now fighting with another bird for the Cheetos bag. Camden’s hands are still laid out at his sides and the yellowed grass lies flat under his palms, spiking up between his fingers. His face is pointed perfectly towards the cloudless sky. “Just let it go,” Camden rasps, but it doesn’t feel like Camden is talking to him.

They don’t speak again that day. Camden lies on his back and stares up into the sky. Stiles keeps his hands folded in his lap and lets the wheels spin empty in his head.


	5. Chapter 5

Camden wasn’t always there, and the office hadn’t always been a thing. Observation though, that was what his existence always came down to. There’s nothing else to do when you can’t really interact with the only world you know.

Stiles used to watch the Sheriff. This was in the time after he learned his name and before he met Camden.

During the day, he would hover outside the Sheriff’s office window and alternate between watching the Sheriff shuffle through his paperwork and the people passing in and out of the front doors. Sometimes the Sheriff would go on patrol and Stiles would accompany him. The Sheriff never had a partner, so Stiles would sit in the passenger seat and scan the streets for danger. For the most part, nothing really happened. The Sheriff would pull a few drivers over for speeding or other minor traffic violations. There wasn’t a single high speed pursuit and the only occasion where a passenger rode in the back was when the Sheriff caught some stupid teen drinking outside the preserve.

Despite the teen’s sullen expression, the teen hadn’t caused the Sheriff any trouble. He hadn’t even tried to run when the cruiser pulled up or when the Sheriff walked slowly over. The bottle of Jack he’d been drinking was nearly empty, but the teen hardly seemed affected. He had no trouble walking to the cruiser, and the Sheriff actually invited the teen to ride shotgun, but the teen shook his head and slunk purposefully into the back.

The ride was mostly silent, the teen hunched over and staring at the ground between his legs. The teen only said one thing, his voice strangely young like the alcohol had burned away the years rather than his coherence. “Sheriff, is there–”

“No,” the Sheriff said, “there’s no news.”

The teen looked like he was going to say more, his eyes glancing at the back of the Sheriff’s head every now and then, but he didn’t.

The Sheriff didn’t take the teen to the station. He took the teen home and handed him off to his mother, a harried looking woman. The mother had thanked the Sheriff with a mix of gratitude and sadness. There was something else too, something in the hesitant eyes of both the teen and his mother that spoke of guilt, but for what, Stiles couldn’t guess. Everything about their interactions on the doorstep seemed like too much for just a delinquent teen sent home to his mother. Emotions ran too high, sentences started suddenly and died mid-word. It was awkward and heavy and Stiles could tell that the Sheriff was eager to escape the mother’s wide-eyed looks and her insistence that he was welcome in their home at any time.

The Sheriff returned to his cruiser with promises of visiting at a later date. He was obviously lying, but no one called him on it and as the cruiser backed out of the driveway, Stiles watched the mother usher her son into the house. It didn’t look like any scolding was about to take place, but it probably wasn’t necessary. The teen didn’t look very responsive and Stiles could tell that the teen would be going straight to his bed on his own volition. Later, Stiles would learn that the teen was named S. McCall.

Despite the uneventful days, there seemed to be no shortage of work for the Sheriff. The Sheriff would pull the longest hours possible, covering shifts for others and letting the paperwork drag long into the night. He didn’t want to go home, not to eat, not to bathe, not to sleep.

Everyone at the Sheriff Station would send worried looks at the closed door of the Sheriff’s office. The deputies would exchange meaningful glances and they took turns bringing the Sheriff coffee or helping him run small errands. All of this had to be done with subtlety, because the Sheriff would send them away when he realized what they were trying to do. He was usually too tired to pay attention to his deputies, face glued to his documents, but now and then he would look up, catch the pitying eyes of his colleagues, and turn angry. Then bristling, he would ban everyone from his office unless they actually had something important to say, and they were to stop fucking _checking up_ on him because he was _fine, goddamnit_.

Of course, after angrily sending his deputies away, the Sheriff would always lock his door and open his desk drawer. He would pull out his secret flask and his one heavy file. During the day, he would never drink from the flask, but in the night he would always take one, long, fortifying pull. Every time the file came out the Sheriff would sit subdued for the next hour. Sometimes he would open the file and go over every letter with a critical eye, combing through it like what he needed could be found between the fibres of the paper pulp. More often, the file would remain closed and the Sheriff would simply hold it.

On the few occasions that the deputies managed to send the Sheriff home, the Sheriff would race inside his house, shower, grab a quick and unhealthy bite, and then scurry back into his cruiser. The deputies didn’t know it, but when the Sheriff couldn’t sleep in his office, he slept in the cruiser. His sleep was fitful and he would wince and touch his neck when he woke, but he would just stretch, start the car, and head back to the office.

Then one day, the FBI came calling.

They pulled up to the station in a nondescript black car and marched into the station as if they owned the place. The two agents nodded curtly at the deputy at the desk and showed themselves in, barely knocking before entering the Sheriff’s office. Stiles was glad that the Sheriff wasn’t sitting with the file and the flask today, but the entrance of the agents brought a storm of emotion to the Sheriff’s face that was quickly covered by a polite mask.

“How can I help you gentlemen?” the Sheriff asked blandly.

“Sheriff Stilinski, I’m Agent Pine and this is my partner Agent Wellesley,” the agent with close-cropped blonde hair said. “It has come to our attention that one of your investigations may be pertinent to our own.”

“Which one?” The Sheriff was guarded. Stiles eyed the two agents coldly, not liking how they set the Sheriff on edge. The agents didn’t look like anything special. Agent Pine had beady grey eyes in a long face, the silver at his temples blending in to the platinum blonde of his hair. He was dressed neatly in a pressed suit and polished leather shoes. Agent Wellesley was younger, his dark brown hair wasn’t as short as his partner’s and it had a slight wave at the tips. His large brown eyes fit his baby face, but his round head looked odd perched on the lanky beanpole of his body.

From Agent Wellesley’s deferential stance and his hunched shoulders, it was easy to tell who held more power in that partnership, so Stiles was surprised when he stepped forward and spoke up. “The investigation into... your son,” Agent Wellesley said almost apologetically. “Elements surrounding the disappearance of your son are consistent with a group we have been tracking for several years.”

Agent Pine opened his brief case and set a large blurry photo on the desk as Agent Wellesley continued speaking. “This is the man we believe may be responsible for your son’s disappearance. He has many aliases, but we know him as Lawson.”

“Just ‘Lawson’? No first name?” The Sheriff spoke calmly, but one hand gripped the armrest of his chair with white knuckles while the other slid the photograph closer.

“Yes, we, uh,” Agent Wellesley shrugged awkwardly. “He likes to go by ‘Lawson’ as in ‘son of law’. The law he refers to is his own which is followed by members of his group. We believe he leads some sort of cult, though it’s uncertain how religious their purposes are, as their rituals vary, but they are indeed rituals.”

The Sheriff took the information in while examining the photograph. It was grainy and looked to be taken from a security camera. It showed a man exiting a building, his purposeful stride frozen in the image. He wore black pants and a black jacket. He had short black hair, and while details were hard to make out, Stiles could see dark eyebrows shadowing dark eyes.

“This is the man who took my son,” Stiles heard the Sheriff say softly to himself. Then he said, louder so the agents could hear, “You say you’ve been tracking this man for years. Tell me, what has he done?”

Agent Wellesley glanced at his partner uneasily and Agent Pine shook his head. “Sheriff Stilinski, we aren’t here to discuss the case with you,” Agent Pine said.

The Sheriff looked up from the photo, surprised.

“We’re here to remove you from the investigation.”

“What?”

Agent Wellesley looked beseechingly at the Sheriff. “We understand that this case is very important to you and you’ve done a lot for this investigation, but sir, you’re too close to the–”

“You’re kicking me off the case.”

“Yes,” Agent Pine said bluntly. “You’ll hand everything related to the case over to us. We’ll liaise with one of your deputies when the occasion calls for it, and we’ll be glad to take any statements you wish to make, but understand that you are not on the case. Any complaints can be lodged with the higher ups.”

“You’re kicking me off the case,” the Sheriff repeated numbly.

Agent Wellesley adjusted the cuff of his suit nervously. “Sheriff, we–”

“You’re going to stop me from finding my son,” the Sheriff said calmly, “and you won’t even tell me what kind of man this Lawson is.”

Agent Wellesley’s eyes wouldn’t meet the Sheriff’s, darting across the mess on the Sheriff’s desk and over the wall behind the Sheriff’s head. It was Agent Pine who spoke. “What kind of man do you think he is, Sheriff?” he said, voice hard. “It’s been five months. Your son is dead.”

The Sheriff gave no outward reaction. “I think you need to leave.”

Agent Pine nodded and collected the photograph, returning it to his suitcase. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning to pick up your files,” he said as he left the office, Agent Wellesley following closely. Agent Wellesley nodded to the Sheriff and closed the door gently behind him.

The Sheriff spent the rest of the day sitting at his desk staring into space.

That was how his deputies found him in the evening when they cracked the door to shoo him home. They expected the Sheriff to fly off the handle at the intrusion, but the Sheriff only nodded. When the door closed again, he flew into a whirlwind of activity. The Sheriff pulled open the drawer and threw his flask into the trashcan. He took out the heavy file and made two photocopies of every sheet. He took the photocopies and tucked them into his bag, then laid the original file on the top of his desk. Finally, he pulled out a legal pad and wrote ‘LAWSON _’_ at the top, followed by a list of details he had observed from the photograph.  He threw that into his bag as well, then took the cruiser and headed home.

Stiles sat stiffly in the passenger seat and watched the Sheriff drive mechanically. The orange of the streetlights cast deep shadows on his face and put an eerie glint in his eye.

When they reached the house, Stiles followed the Sheriff in and watched as the Sheriff emptied his bag in the study. The Sheriff took one copy of the file and hid it in a safe. He took the other copy of the file and began pinning the pieces to a large corkboard on the wall. He hung photographs and transcripts like wallpaper, and when he was done he stepped back to check his handiwork. The corkboard was massive and half of it was covered with the contents of the file. The other half was empty except for the paper torn from the legal pad pinned at the top.

“Lawson,” the Sheriff said, and Stiles shivered at the quiet fury in his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, tell me what you think. Feedback is always appreciated. :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, everyone. Here's a short chapter.

There is a memorial at the high school.

It’s just a small plaque with his awkward school photo, his name, and a little blurb that goes something like, _In recognition of your outstanding ability to die before completing high school._

Well, it doesn’t actually say that, but it might as well. It hangs in the foyer, right next to trophy cases, academic awards, and rows and rows of graduating classes.

It took a long time for the plaque to go up. The faculty felt it was proper to honour a deceased student, but the Sheriff fought them every step of the way.

“He’s not dead,” the Sheriff would say, red faced and jaw tensed. “Don’t put up some stupid sign that says he is.”

Even after Agent Pine and Agent Wellesley took the case away from him, the Sheriff continued to insist that Stiles was alive. Sometimes it seemed more like the Sheriff was trying to convince himself, but a pragmatic man can only live in denial for so long. By the time the school year finished, Stiles had been missing for nine months, and the plaque finally went up.

It’s only been a year since then and Stiles can already see dust settling on the top edge of the plaque. It’s to be expected. He was a senior, so most of his friends have probably graduated, and it’s not like the plaque is a thing to be proud of.

There are other, better maintained mementos that mark his time in the school. His name is on the awards for a couple robotics competitions and he’s in a picture with the lacrosse team, the photo surrounded by tall trophies, shining symbols of their ability to kick ass. There’s also a new award that was made in his honour. _The Stiles Stilinski Award for Good Sportsmanship_ , which sounds like a joke, but apparently it’s given to students who embody his ability to warm benches, cheer, and suddenly score winning goals. That’s how the coach described it when he handed the certificate to a graduating student, the first student to ever receive it.

McCall had accepted the certificate with shaking hands as he listened to the coach explain how his name would be on a new plaque dedicated to recipients of the award. The coach gave his speech with an air of obvious discomfort, and when he reached out to give McCall an awkward pat on the shoulder, McCall burst into tears, right there on the stage in front of his entire graduating class. They weren’t the quiet tears of an adult trying to reign in emotion. They were the loud, ugly tears cried by boys who were hurting and didn’t know what else to do.

A girl wearing a cap and gown shot out of the audience and ran towards McCall, but Stiles didn’t stay to watch the rest of the graduation ceremony.

It hurts to see the people who loved him hurt. It hurts even though he can’t remember them, and it hurts because he can’t remember them.

He doesn’t even know McCall’s first name, and he doesn’t know what it was like to be raised by an officer of the law, but Stiles can see it in their pale and lost looking faces. Stiles can see that he had a friend, and he had a father, but what good is that knowledge when he can’t do anything about it? That is why he can’t watch McCall alternate between rage and depression. That is why he can’t watch the Sheriff lose himself in his study. That is why he loiters around the high school at times like this, when Camden is out delivering messages and Stiles has none of his own. There’s no harm in watching a building where the story has already closed.

Here, Stiles Stilinski won two robotics competitions. Here, Stiles Stilinski helped bring the lacrosse team to victory. Here, S. McCall is recognized for his good sportsmanship, and here, S. McCall graduates, his unsmiling face slotted amongst rows and rows of grinning students. That chapter of their lives is over, for Stiles more permanently than for others, but Stiles is here, now, still.

Usually, Stiles would be outside on the field, but today Stiles stands in front of the portraits of his graduating year and he stares at the spot between _T. Stetson_ and _W. Stoll_. He stares and imagines what it would be like to see his photo there. He imagines what it would’ve been like to accept his diploma and skip triumphantly off the stage. “That’s my son!” Dad had roared as he clapped and cheered and stood proudly on the bleachers. Stiles thinks he would’ve jumped on McCall after the ceremony and hugged him so tightly that McCall’s diploma would be crumpled and ruined. He thinks the Sheriff would’ve worn a smile wide enough to add new wrinkles to his face, and he wonders if the Sheriff would’ve let him drive the cruiser home, lights flashing and siren blaring all the way–

The glass cracks and Stiles stumbles back, arms flailing to keep his balance.

He didn’t touch it. He wasn’t even that close to the picture frame, but the crack isn’t a part of his imagination. It runs like a spider web over the graduate portraits, the origin on the space between _T. Stetson_ and _W. Stoll_. Jagged tendrils extend outwards, obscuring the faces of _S. McCall, E. Reyes, V. Boyd, A. Argent, I. Lahey_ –

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut tightly and when he opens them, he is somewhere else.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's Christmas, we've passed the 1000 hit mark, and I'm feeling good. Have a shiny new chapter. As always, reviews are much loved.

His relationship with Camden is mostly based on bitching, complaining, and making bad jokes. There was only one time when they really had anything close to a heart-to-heart.

“The first thing I saw was the sky,” Camden had said while they were watching the first lacrosse match of the season.

It came out of nowhere and Stiles had looked away from the game to give Camden a raised eyebrow. The Beacon Hills team was kind of terrible, anyway. The coach was losing his shit on the sidelines and he probably gave a locker room speech about testicles after.

“There weren’t any clouds and it was just so fucking blue, I couldn’t stand it,” Camden said. “So I turned my head, and the next thing I saw was the desert, and that’s all I saw for a long, long time.”

There was a collective groan from the crowd and Stiles assumed that another goal was missed, but he didn’t care.

“I had a theory going for a while that I was on some sort of spirit quest or some shit, y’know? Being in the middle of the fucking desert and all– no one was around for miles. I didn’t know anything but my name: Camden Lahey, ‘cause that’s what it said on my damn tags.” He jingled the tags around his neck and then let them fall back over his tan shirt.

“Funny thing about the desert: it makes you forget. Not like I had any memories to lose, but it still hit me. I’d forget what I was trying to do and where I was trying to go and why I was doing all the things I was doing, but then days went by and I didn’t get cold or hungry or tired or anything, and then I knew. I knew I was dead.

“So I tried some things. It’s like a rite of passage, huh, how we all try to teleport or move stuff with our minds.” Camden chuckled and bumped his shoulder with Stiles’. “But we can’t all be naturals like you and your blipping, and I had to fucking walk my way back to civilization. I got to a base– eventually– but I still had no idea what to do. I thought of leaving for the states, but the U. S. of A. is a freaking big country and I was just some dead guy, MIA on the other side of the world.

“And then the postcards started.” Camden had reached into his pocket then and pulled one out, letting the cardstock flap loosely in front of Stiles’ face. “ _Dear Christie, you looked so beautiful in white, I wish– Dear Lee, I’m sorry I left, I know I hurt you, but– Dear Little Man, one day you’ll go to the moon and– Dear Mama, I won’t be coming home–“_

Camden paused, but Stiles kept his eyes fixed vacantly on the game, giving Camden some illusion of privacy.

“They just kept appearing in my pocket. Every time I tried to get rid of them they’d come back and sometimes there’d be new ones too. They were all letters from dead soldiers and I hated it. I didn’t know what the hell to do with them. Was there some sort of ghost ship to take ghost mailmen to deliver ghost mail for ghosts? Fuck if I knew.” He put the postcard back in his pocket.

“Then there was this one card. Different. It was for one of the guys on the base, Private Casey. _Daddy, be safe._ ”

Camden stopped.

“I left that one under Private Casey’s pillow. He found it the next morning. His friends were pissed ‘cause you see, Casey’s kid died a couple months before. And they couldn’t believe some asshole would do this to Casey, but... Casey just... He was smiling and crying and he told them to shut the fuck up, ‘cause it was his boy, all right. Only his boy would send him a hot pink postcard with god awful crayon inside...”

Camden sighed. “And just like that, I knew I had to deliver every last motherfucking postcard. So I did. Not all of ‘em were believed, but I delivered ‘em. And when that was done I thought... What if I have someone waiting for me? What if all that time I was dicking around someone was waiting for me to come home?

“It took a helluva lot of work, but I figured out where they shipped my stuff when they realized I was really dead, and I followed the trail home. And when I got home...”

By then the crowd had stopped yelling and the people were starting to disperse. Stiles didn’t know when the game ended and he didn’t know what the score was, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Camden’s slumped shoulders. He’s a big guy who fills out his uniform well, but at that moment he looked as skinny as the benchwarmers packing up their gear by the field.

When it looked like Camden wasn’t going to continue, Stiles finally managed to find his voice. “Why did you tell me all that?”

Camden had shaken his head and sighed. “We shouldn’t be here,” he had said, speaking to himself as much as he was speaking to Stiles. It was the first time he’d said something like that, and it wouldn’t be the last. “We should just do our jobs.”

“Why? We have off time, what else are we supposed to do with it?”

Camden had stood up and pulled the postcards from his pocket. He checked the addresses in the familiar ritual that Stiles knew meant he was about to start a round of deliveries. “We aren’t home,” Camden had told Stiles without looking up. “We will never be home.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles has a theory about the messages.

He doesn’t know why it is that he gets shoved in an office and Camden gets loaded with postcards. He doesn’t know why the messages manifest as they do and he doesn’t know who writes the files that are left in stacks of manila folders on his desk. He doesn’t know why they are messengers, but when considering the number of deaths that must occur every day and comparing that number to the few encounters he’s had with his own kind, he can safely conclude that messengers are rare.

It’s a pretty mysterious job, so Stiles can’t help but wonder. If messengers were originally people, what made him so special, so different? Why can’t spirits send their own messages? Why do messengers exist? What qualities saddled him with this job while so many others passed on to wherever the hell people pass on to? There must be an afterlife – these messages aren’t figments of his imagination – but whatever heaven, hell, limbo, underworld, or paradise exists, Stiles has never seen sign of it. For all Stiles knows, reincarnation could be the step after death, or maybe just a disintegration into the fabric of space and time.

Camden calls his messages ‘letters from the dead’ and that’s good enough for him, but Camden walks the frontlines. He gets up close and personal with one client at a time. He gets to see the clear fruit of his labour. He gets to see when he needs to put in more effort to sell the story or when he needs to let it lie.

It’s not like that with Stiles. Stiles gets this cold, impersonal office and he doesn’t even get a decent view. He gets to stare at the bare white walls of his cell as he listens to all the pain and the hurt that the scanner picks up while he searches for a single voice among millions. Stiles can only leave messages hanging in the airwaves on loop, waiting for the intended ears to pick up on them, one day, when they’re ready, when they finally pay attention to that static in their electronics, their phones and their radios.

It’s different for Stiles and that’s why he can’t call the messages ‘letters from the dead.’

_If only I weren’t such a fuck up. If only I’d been faster. If only I’d been stronger, you’d still be here, and I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what it’s like to hold your hand and I wish we’d had time. I wish I could tell you..._

See, Stiles has a theory about the messages. He doesn’t think they’re ‘letters from the dead.’ He thinks they’re parting thoughts, people’s hopes and prayers and regrets as they close their eyes for the last time. He thinks they’re the words that go unheard in those moments at the end, the words that are left incomplete in final breaths.   

_Stil–_

He turns the dial.

A man is cursing public transit in his ear.

Stiles double checks the equipment. He flicks on the mike.

_“Hey Dennis, can you hear me? Listen...It’s not your fault. Stanley’s sorry, do you hear me? He was wrong and it wasn’t your fault...He made a mistake. He knows that, and it’s not your fault, so listen... Listen...”_

He doesn’t know much about his job, but he doesn’t like it. His voice is not the voice that these people long to hear. These words are not meant for his tongue. These messages are meaningless from his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: more Peter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Peter mentioning suicide in an unkindly way.

Camden is avoiding him.

It’s obvious because they tend to seek each other’s company and neither of them have ever had deliveries that lasted more than three days. It’s now been a full week since they parted ways at the college campus, and a week doesn’t sound like a long time, but it feels like a small eternity when there is literally no one else to talk to.

Except that’s not quite true anymore. There are places they can go to visit other messengers, and for Stiles, there is someone new, right here in Beacon Hills.

“Good morning, Stiles.” Peter greets him with a smile. He sits on the porch of the burnt house in a cheap lawn chair, the clean white of the plastic jarring against the backdrop of soot and decay. Stiles isn’t sure what Peter’s doing out here, but it looks like he’s enjoying himself. There’s a little overturned crate by his side that serves as a table for a small cooler bag. There is a charred dining chair on the other side of the crate that someone must have moved from the house. Peter gestures for Stiles to take a seat and opens the cooler to reveal a large bottle of homemade iced tea.

Stiles thinks the iced tea looks like a jar of formaldehyde with the way the lemon slices float inside the bottle, but that’s probably because of the haunted-house vibe that comes with the area and the company. He’s not sure how he feels about seeing Peter again, but he can’t lie. He came to the woods hoping Peter would be there.

“You’re alive,” Stiles says as he seats himself on the dining chair. He sits at an angle on the edge of the seat so he doesn’t have to turn his head too much to face Peter, and that brings his toes up against a plastic bucket holding a sad looking plant.

Peter gives Stiles a pointed look and silently pulls a glass from the cooler bag.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Good morning, Peter,” he says, trying not to sound too patronizing.

Peter smiles. “Yes, I am alive.”

“How are you alive?” Stiles asks, less sharply than he’d meant to as he watches Peter pour himself a glass of iced tea. He’d have never expected it, but it’s strangely easy to rein in any outbursts when Peter is acting like it’s just another summer day. It’s a bit ridiculous, how Peter insists on drinking the iced tea out of a glass rather than straight from the bottle. It’s not like he’s sharing the tea with anyone. “Were you lying when you said you died?”

Peter hums a little and takes a sip from his glass. He smiles, pleased by the refreshment. “I never explicitly said I died–”

“Oh, come on–”

“–but in many ways I did indeed die. It’s all a mess of technicalities.” Peter waves a careless hand and wiggles his fingers a little, illustrating how little he thinks of it. “Most would say that death has no grey area and you are either dead or alive, but the people who say that are all alive and therefore don’t know any better.” Peter doesn’t bother to disguise his arrogance and he shoots Stiles a secretive smile. “You and I know that it’s not that simple.” Stiles nods his head vigorously and tries to keep his face from twitching, but Peter frowns, unimpressed. “Or maybe you don’t know, but that’s what I’m here for. To tell you.”

“Okay,” Stiles says uncertainly, watching Peter watch him from over the rim of the glass. Stiles is glad that they’re sitting. The distance helps him keep his head on his shoulders. “Uh, can we clear something up first? ‘Cause it sounds more like you’re talking about some sort of _metaphorical_ death, and I don’t think that’s really going to help me–”

“No, I’m not talking about a metaphorical death, but I can tell you about those too, because the things I’ve been through–” Peter laughs a short, ugly laugh. He sets his glass of iced tea on the crate. It’s half finished and a lemon slice slumps at the bottom like the cross-section of an organ. “Our experiences will differ, right down to the bones of our bodies, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to help you.”

Stiles nods and leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “And by ‘help’ you mean–”

“I mean what you mean: life. I will help bring you back to life.”

“Okay. Okay,” Stiles says, and he can’t stop nodding his head, but it’s either that or bouncing his knee and risk phasing right through the chair. “Okay, but tell me, how exactly did you die?”

“I already told you. By fire–”

“No. I want specifics. I’m not here for your word games, or your mind games, or whatever the hell you’re playing at. I’m here because,” and Stiles doesn’t actually know how to finish that sentence without making Peter’s smirk grow wider. 

Peter’s smirk grows very wide. “You’re here because there’s no one else who can give you what I can give you.”

“You don’t know that.” If Stiles sounds a little huffy, he doesn’t care. He’s a bit embarrassed about how he behaved the last time he was in Peter’s presence. He’d been stupidly trusting, and he doesn’t like this, Peter having the upper hand. Even worse: Peter _knowing_ it.

“If you know someone else, you’re welcome to visit them.” Peter shrugs, arms open. He leans back in his chair with an expression that tells Stiles exactly how unaffected he is. “I won’t be offended.”

“Shut up; just tell me how you died.”

“Which is it?” Peter cocks his head. “Do you want me to shut up, or do you want me to tell you–”

“God, you’re annoying.”

Peter’s legs are crossed and his hands are folded neatly in his lap. He’s the picture of innocence with a shit-eating grin that somehow manages to stay handsome. “You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to anyone even half as entertaining as you.”

“So I’m entertaining,” Stiles says, voice flat.

“You’re intelligent and you’re cautious.” Peter’s grin turns wolfish. “It’s a potent mix.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Stiles says awkwardly. Stiles can’t stop his eyes from darting around like a skittish doe’s. Peter is leaning forward now and his toe is close enough to touch Stiles’.

“You’re welcome.” Peter doesn’t try to brush their feet together like Stiles thought he would. Peter only leans forward enough to drag the plant in front of Stiles closer. The plastic of the bucket scrapes noisily across the porch, flaying the remnants of paint from the planks. The sound makes Stiles’ eye twitch and Peter doesn’t stop until he has it positioned between his knees. “And you’re right. There is more to the way I died–”

“I knew it.”

“–but it’s not as complex as you might’ve been imagining. You see, this idiot threw a chemical bomb at me–”

“What?”

“–Oh, no, I caught it,” Peter waves off his concern, “but long story short: the chemicals managed to ignite and I was finished by a laceration to the throat.”

“Oh my god. What? Who– Why did this happen to you?”

“I made some bad choices.” Peter takes a sip from his iced tea. “It happens.”

“So, you died–“

“I died,” Peter confirms and tips the rest of his glass over the plant between his feet. The splash of tea on the plant’s leaves sounds oddly gentle juxtaposed with his words. The lemon slice falls onto the potted soil with a dull splat.

“And the people who killed you–“

“I’d like to think we’re on better terms these days.”

“So you’re– what– _buddies_ now or something?” Stiles can feel his eyebrows climb into his hairline.

“More or less.” Peter tilts his head, face scrunching a bit in thought. “Less,” Peter amends.

Peter’s cavalier attitude doesn’t help with Stiles’ incredulity, and he can’t get over how bizarre and horrific it all is. He died here and he still can’t believe this happened in Beacon Hills – this quiet town he’s been watching for months – and he can’t believe Peter can just sit there sipping iced tea like it’s no big deal. And now Peter is pruning the plant, cool as a cucumber. “And the house is connected to all this, how?”

Peter’s hands still around the stem of the plant, his fingers just touching the tender stalk of a young leaf. “My family burned here.” Peter straightens up. He looks Stiles in the eye. “They were murdered.”

Stiles swallows thickly. Peter doesn’t look so unaffected now. “I’m sorry.”

Peter smiles but it’s not even close to reaching his eyes. He’s not trying at all, and that makes it far more unnerving than any of his previous smiles. That Stiles suddenly realizes the previous smiles required effort is telling, too. “If you’d like, I can tell you about metaphorical death now.”

Stiles shakes his head and clasps his hands politely in his lap, trying to look as small and nonthreatening as possible. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

Peter nods and – to Stiles’ relief – returns his attention to the plant between his feet. “Do you have any more questions?”

Stiles nods but stops when he realizes Peter isn’t looking. “How... How do I know you’re a reliable source?” Stiles watches intently as Peter mulls over the question, hunched over his plant. If it weren’t already obvious that Stiles has doubts about Peter, this question makes it explicit. Stiles doesn’t think Peter has been lying, but everything about Peter just seems a little... off. Hell, sometimes _way_ off.

Peter is an anomaly with which Stiles has no basis for comparison, and Stiles doesn’t know how much of what he’s dealt with should be attributed to the strangeness of Peter’s being, or to his self as a person. Does his skin crawl because Peter is a creep or because Peter is different? Does his focus slip because of Peter’s words or because Peter’s living body has that effect on him? Stiles doesn’t know. Even though he’s only met Peter twice, he gets the feeling that dealing with Peter is a bit like looking through a kaleidoscope, everything twisting and distorting, new facets coming into light and falling into shadow with every glance, and Stiles is worried that he’s going to miss something important.   

Peter hums thoughtfully as he throws a scrap of plant matter onto the porch. “Would you like a list of references? Perhaps a works cited?”

“That would be nice.”

Peter scatters some more torn leaves around. “All I can tell you is I’ve seen things.”

“Wow. Awesome. I’m sold.”

Peter shrugs off Stiles’ sarcasm, head still bent. “I was catatonic for years. The doctors were right when they said I wasn’t all there.” Peter chuckles to himself. He throws some more leaves over the edge of the plant bucket. Stiles doesn’t know what type of plant it is, but it’s considerably smaller now than it was before Peter started, and it had been small to start with. “It’s a risk, but I’m the closest thing you’ll find to an expert. I’m yours if you want me.”

Stiles sighs. “I just don’t get it. Why would you help me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t answer me with a question. Give me something better.”

“Because I like you,” Peter teases. When Stiles doesn’t respond, Peter looks up from his pruning.

Stiles gives him a hard stare, willing him to give a straight answer. He doesn’t know how much of what Peter has told him so far is true. He doesn’t know if Peter has left anything out, and this awareness of the vulnerability his ignorance poses is the only defence he has. It’ll have to be enough, to hear Peter’s reasoning and judge the risk from that. It’s obvious that Peter is clever and it’s obvious that he’s resourceful, but does Peter have something more that Stiles can trust?

Peter seems to read something of Stiles’ thoughts from his expression, because there is no teasing edge to his voice when he answers again. “Because I’m bored, and I’m angry, and because I regret losing you,” Peter says, utterly serious. Stiles isn’t exactly sure what Peter means by that, but the blue of Peter’s irises are thin rings around his pupils when he leans closer to Stiles, his advance only stopped by the bucket at his feet. Peter’s hand twitches forward, an aborted reach towards Stiles.

Stiles isn’t sure how to classify the look on Peter’s face. It’s not sadness – not even close – but there’s something about it that does speak of loss. It’s a cold and distant echo, but it’s there in the way Peter’s eyes flit across his face, scanning it as though searching for something. It reminds him of the way Camden sometimes looks at him, but Peter’s eyes are not wary. Peter isn’t afraid.

“I don’t belong here and you don’t belong there, but I have to say, this side is the fun side and it’s even better when you’ve seen beyond the veil.” A crooked smile breaks across Peter’s face. “Let me help you and you’ll see.”

“I...” Stiles drops his eyes to the scuffed plastic of the plant bucket. His breathing is short and shallow and he curses himself for nearly having a repeat of the last meeting. When he’s caught his imaginary breath, Stiles forces himself to meet Peter’s eyes again.

So much for eyes being the window to the soul. Peter’s are one-way mirrors and he’s still absently fiddling with the plant. The plant that doesn’t look like much of a plant anymore.

“Jesus, what did you do to your plant?” Stiles stares at the little stub left in the bucket. What was formerly a sad but well cared for plant is now a desecrated mess. Peter has stripped away every leaf, both shrivelled and new. “It looks like Bunnicula decided to try solids.”

“Oh, it’s not my plant.” Peter glances down at the remains between his feet. He absently rubs his hands together, cleaning the soil from between his fingers. “I take care of my things.”

“And this is what you do to other people’s things?”

Peter shrugs and examines his fingernails. His finger tips are stained green. “It happens.”

Stiles shakes his head and brings his focus back to the matter at hand. “I’m not agreeing to anything,” Stiles starts, jabbing a finger towards Peter to emphasize his point. Peter nods in acknowledgement and Stiles continues. “I need you to explain how this would work. How do you plan to, uh, resurrect me? Are there any, like, side effects? What’s the catch?”

“Oh, hmm,” Peter sucks at his teeth and squints his eyes, “’resurrect’ is a bit strong. I promised _life_ , not the second coming.”

“ _What?_ I thought, like, I dunno, I was going to get my own flesh and blood back and–” Stiles doesn’t know what his face does, but his left foot phases through the porch. “Okay, _fine_!” He recovers angrily and really wishes he could punch the amused smirk off of Peter’s face. “What do you _mean_ , then, hmm? Just be _clear_ , goddamnit, and you don’t have to be so rude– and stop with the smirking, dude. It was a totally understandable misunderstanding.”

Peter doesn’t stop smirking. “Well, to be _clear_ , I promised then and I still promise now that you can have life.”

“But...”

“But I’m not a god. I’m skilled in many things, but even I can’t breathe life into a body of dust.”

“I thought we agreed to be clear.”

“I can’t make something from nothing, Stiles. This isn’t something we can just go to the nearest Build-a-Bear Workshop for, and even if you knew where your body was, you couldn’t use it. Your body’s no good anymore, and not just any body will do. The body needs a spark.”

“A spark?”

“That’s right. It’s that little special something that makes you, little special you.” Peter smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He’s like a teacher delving into his favourite subject. “It’s not a bad thing, to have the spark– the spark is rare, and actually, it’s only because you have it that this process will be possible– just think of it as an issue of compatibility. Imagine your soul, your essence– the intangible you– as being a star-shaped peg. Now, a star-shaped peg isn’t going to fit in a square hole or a triangular hole or a round hole. Either it won’t go in, or it’ll fall right through, so a star-shaped peg has to find a star-shaped hole. Similarly, a soul that carries a spark needs a body that can handle the spark.”

“Hold on,” Stiles holds a hand up to stop Peter from bulldozing him with further elaboration. “Stepping away from the allegory, we’ve been talking about bodies, but this is not like shopping for clothes. Where the hell would I find a body lying around that just happens to be spark-compatible?”

“Well, you just have to look around you. There are bodies walking everywhere.”

“Wait. You mean _living_ bodies?” Peter nods and Stiles’ jaw drops. “Dude, those are _people_.”

Peter looks confused. “So you were okay with riding a corpse, but you draw the line at–”

“ _That’s not the point_.” Stiles shoots up from his chair. His toe catches on a loose plank and he almost falls off the porch in his haste to back away from Peter. “Oh my God, you’re talking about taking _people_ and– God, I don’t even _know_ – kicking their souls out? Beating their souls into submission? Fuck, this is– fuck. _No_.”

“You think you’re doing the world a favour, protecting the sanctity of– what? Some bodies? Some _people?_ ” Peter spits the last word. He looks as if he can’t even begin to fathom what Stiles finds so wrong with the situation. Peter is still comparatively calm, but there’s a restlessness that seems to thrum through him now, changing the very air around them. “You’re a messenger, I know, but you must know how people are.”

Peter stands up and steps over the plant bucket. He stalks forward, and with every step he takes, Stiles takes one step back until his heels rest on the edge of the porch. The drop from the porch to the bare ground is short, but Stiles feels like he’s perched precariously on a cliff.

“How many lives are thrown away every day?” Peter asks. “How many _messages_ do you send from suicides?” The question is sharp and brutal and the accuracy tips Stiles backward, but Peter catches his wrist and drags him back in. “How many people ruin themselves even as they breathe? How many people abuse themselves and each other? How many messages do you send; how many regrets and apologies? _How many realizations that came too late?_ ”

Stiles feels sick. His gut churns and he can’t stop shaking his head in wordless denial, but Peter is relentless. “ _People_ are stupid. _People_ pump themselves with garbage and waste their lives and they never learn the value of what they have.” Peter is shaking Stiles. Peter’s hand is a manacle around Stile’s wrist, and though Stiles is taller than Peter, it feels like Peter looms over him, his age and experience a high perch from which he shadows Stiles. “It’s _death_ that teaches the lesson, and it’s _death_ that ensures they’ll never put their knowledge to use.”

There’s a terrible fervour in Peter’s eyes and his grip gentles on Stiles’ wrist, but the touch still burns. It’s a fire that scares Stiles, and he’s afraid he’ll become as charred as the house he stands under. 

“But you,” Peter is saying, so, so softly, “you are such a rare thing, and you know how precious it all is– life and love and everything _people_ take for granted– you wouldn’t squander those gifts, so don’t let yourself go to waste.”

Stiles is still shaking his head. The image of Peter swims before his eyes, colours too bright and edges too sharp, and Peter’s voice is gentle, gentle, gentle. “I won’t force you, Stiles. I will always give you a choice, but tell me, don’t you deserve it? Don’t you deserve to live? Don’t you deserve to hold your loved ones again? Doesn’t your _father_ deserve to have his _son_ –“

Stiles isn’t sure what happens. It’s too much. One moment he’s hanging from Peter’s grip, his hand almost cradled to Peter’s chest, and the next he’s braced over Peter on the dirt. “Be quiet,” he hears himself say as if from very far away. “You don’t know anything.”

Stiles gets up and steps back. The hand that Peter had used to grip Stiles is now curled against his chest, and the flesh of his palm looks red and burned. Peter’s jaw works as if he wants to say something, but no sound comes out. Peter watches Stiles with wide, searching eyes, but there’s no fear in them.

No, Peter looks at him with awe.

Stiles’ breath rattles in his chest and he can feel fine tremors settling into his hands. He needs to get out of here, and even though Peter’s the one lying injured on the ground, Stiles can’t help but feel like prey. Stiles backs out of the clearing, unwilling to take his eyes off Peter.

Peter watches him go, and though his lips don’t move, Stiles swears he can hear him in the static of his mind.

_I’ll be waiting, Stiles. Just close your eyes and click your heels when you’re ready to go home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration for the plant bucket was taken from a Tumblr post I haven't been able to find again. It theorizes that Derek spends time on the porch watering the plant all by his lonesome. So yes, I am implying that Peter ripped up the little plant that Derek's been carefully tending to. If someone can find that post and tell me, that would be great.


	9. Chapter 9

Stiles doesn’t know how long it takes him to calm down.

He feels disgusting. The feeling is worse than the sensation he gets from passing through living bodies, and just thinking about _living bodies_ makes him want to vomit his not-organs all over the pavement.

To think that he’d actually gone _looking for Peter_ , even though the guy gives him chills. Even if those chills are sometimes displaced by something else, some intoxicating sensation – and actually, that should be an even better reason for staying away from Peter. He can’t think straight when it comes to Peter, and nothing about that is good.

Stiles was wrong about Peter. Peter isn’t some sort of mystical kaleidoscope. No, Peter is the devil. Peter is evil personified. Peter is a drug dealing pimp wrapped in a straightjacket and sitting in an unmarked white van that emits poisoned candy. Peter is bad news and Stiles should’ve turned tail the moment he saw Peter’s smug little smirk.   

God, Stiles is going to rip Camden a new one for leaving him alone. Camden is the voice of reason. He should’ve been there to keep Stiles from wandering off to meet creepy psychos who like to sip iced tea in the ruins of their lives. And fuck, thinking about Camden just kicks another hornet’s next.

Stiles has no idea what the fuck is up with Camden, and after seeing Peter, Stiles is more confused than he’s ever been. Camden looks at him, and Peter looks at him, and it’s like they’re both looking for the same thing. They both know _something_. Their gazes are searching and they look at Stiles and he doesn’t know what they’re looking for, goddamnit. And the worst part isn’t even this similarity; the worst part is the _difference_. Camden looks at him with worry, with caution, and with just a little bit of _fear_ , but Peter– Peter looks at him with awe, and Stiles doesn’t know what to do with that.

His only friend looks at him like he’s a ticking bomb, and the guy without a moral compass looks at him like he’s a miracle. It’s fucked up.

Stiles doesn’t want to be alone right now. He’s been wandering the streets of Beacon Hills again. The sun is already beginning to set and Stiles wouldn’t trust himself to walk through a door properly, let alone teleport to the other side of the world. He doesn’t think he can manage any controlled blipping and he doesn’t want to accidentally pop into the center of the Earth. He can’t chase the sun tonight, so he does the next best thing.

Stiles runs to the Sheriff Station and bless his lucky stars, something is going right. It’s been months and he doesn’t know the Sheriff’s schedule, but he makes it to the station in time to catch the Sheriff as he gets off work.

Guilt and sorrow stab through his gut like a fresh wound when he sees the bags under the Sheriff’s eyes and the harsh new lines on his face, but it’s so much better than the sickness that was bubbling up the back of his throat. It’s so much more pure. He knows that nothing can hurt his intangible body, but it’s only when he’s with the Sheriff that he feels safe. Only with the Sheriff does it seem like the dark can’t reach him, like the office can’t find him. It doesn’t make sense, how his only safe place is often the greatest source of his hurt. And Jesus, Stiles doesn’t know when the Sheriff became his human nightlight, but at least no one ever has to know.

“Hey Sheri-uh-Dad,” Stiles says as he hops into the cruiser, unseen and unheard by the Sheriff. “Sorry I haven’t come by in a while, but, y’know...”

The Sheriff doesn’t say anything, of course. He only puts his keys in the ignition and starts the engine.

Stiles knows the silence isn’t any sort of response from the Sheriff, but it still feels like one and it makes Stiles twist unhappily in his seat. “I hope you had a good day,” Stiles says to fill the silence. Just for his own sake. “You’d better have had something healthier than a burger for lunch. At least tell me you resisted fries. And if you’re having Pizza Pockets for dinner again...”

The car ride goes on like that with Stiles ostensibly talking to the Sheriff, but really only babbling to himself. Stiles is mostly watching the dashboard and the glow of orange streetlights dimming and brightening as they pass overhead, so he notices the colour of the lights bleaching, but he doesn’t think about what it means until the Sheriff is parking the car.

When Stiles looks up, he realizes that they’re on the richer side of Beacon Hills in a nice suburb with those newer, larger houses and the brighter streetlights that actually illuminate things. “Did you get a new house while I was gone?” Stiles jokes weakly. It stings a bit to think that his college fund has gone into buying a new house, but isn’t this what he wants, for the Sheriff to move on?

The Sheriff steps out of his cruiser and briskly climbs the few steps that take him up the porch and to the front door. Stiles is right behind him, admiring the clean white railing that circles the porch and the elegant moulding framing the large windows. The house is brightly lit on the inside and the outside, which seems almost wasteful to Stiles, energy-wise, but really improves the atmosphere. It’s a nice house.

Stiles relaxes a little when the Sheriff rings the door bell – meaning the house is not his – but freezes up again when a man answers the door with a smile that immediately slips away. The man recovers quickly and the smile returns, bright and polite within the blink of an eye. “Sheriff, how can I help you?”

“Mr Argent,” the Sheriff says. His voice is gruffer than Stiles remembers. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but I believe there’s something you can help me with.”

“Oh no, we just finished dinner. I’d be glad to help.” Mr Argent smiles and opens the door wider to beckon the Sheriff inside. “And please, I thought I already told you, there’s no need for the formalities. We’ve known each other long enough, so call me Chris.”

The Sheriff blinks slowly in a way that tells Stiles he’ll go right on calling the man ‘Mr Argent’ if he feels like it, but he steps over the threshold and scans the foyer as Mr Argent closes the door behind them.

The foyer is as pleasant as the exterior of the house, brightly lit and tastefully decorated. Stiles feels like he’s stepping into a model home, and he has to wonder what Mr Argent does for a living to afford such a lifestyle. Not to say that the house is extravagant or that Mr Argent is rolling in it, but Mr Argent is definitely not scrapping by in the gutter and he clearly takes the time to maintain his home.

Mr Argent fits perfectly with his surroundings. He’s not lounging around in sweats or ratty old tees like Stiles would if he were home. Even though Mr Argent clearly wasn’t expecting any guests, he’s dressed well enough that he could easily step outside without shaming his entire household. Stiles can practically see the Boy Scout in him, helping little old ladies cross the street. Mr Argent is a man who’s always prepared, and it’s evident in how he approaches his unexpected visitor.

“We can talk in my office,” Mr Argent says, unfazed by the Sheriff’s brusque manner. “Would you like anything to drink? Maybe some dessert? Allison has been on a baking spree, and there’s really way too much–“

“No, thank you. If we could, I’d like to get straight to business.”

Mr Argent makes a courteous host, but Stiles can see his discomfort in the careful movements of his eyes, like Mr Argent is coaching himself into making appropriately frequent eye contact with the Sheriff. Still, his poker face is impressive and Mr Argent doesn’t falter. “Of course.” He smiles and nods in understanding. “This way then,” he says, gesturing for the Sheriff to follow him down a hall. “You must be pretty busy. I know someone broke into a house just down the street last week. I’m afraid I’m not really in the loop, but–“

“That’s not what I’m here for.”

“I see,” Mr Argent says mildly as he opens the door to his office. “Well, why don’t we have a seat and we can discuss whatever it is you want to discuss.”

Stiles doesn’t know what he was expecting, but the office is surprisingly cozy, except for the many diagrams of guns decorating the walls. And the actual guns.

There’s a sturdy wooden desk in the middle, and bookshelves lining most of the walls in the office, but the real eye-catchers are the display cases tucked alongside books on the bookshelves. The glass cases are of the sort that displays valuables in museums, but inside these cases rest revolvers, pistols, assault rifles, submachine guns, and military grade hardware. Some look like heirlooms and some look like new show pieces, but all are well cared for and seem functional enough to be used at any time.

The Sheriff doesn’t look shocked, but he does raise an impressed eyebrow at the display of firepower around him.

“What would you like for Christmas?” Mr Argent jokes, and Stiles rethinks his first impression of Mr Argent. He probably has scout badges for fishing with machine guns and killing bears with garrottes.

“Don’t want to spoil the department,” the Sheriff says, a hint of a smile touching his lips.

Mr Argent chuckles and seems to relax a little, but his movements remain controlled as he takes a seat on one side of the desk and the Sheriff takes a seat on the other. There is a computer monitor off to the side and Mr Argent slides the keyboard and mouse away to clear the space between himself and the Sheriff. Then he rests his clasped hands on the desk and looks earnestly at the Sheriff. “So,” Mr Argent says, a small smile on his face and a crease of concern in his brow, “I’m not sure how useful I’ll be, but I’d be happy to help in any way I can.”

“I’m sure you’ll be very useful,” the Sheriff assures him as he pulls some papers out of his jacket. He lays the papers on the desk, unfolding them one by one to reveal several photocopies. The papers are creased from their time in the Sheriff’s jacket, but they’re still clear, and Stiles watches as three photos are revealed, each with handwritten notes scribbled into the white borders.

“So, you’re visiting in a professional capacity.” Mr Argent comments, watching the Sheriff spread and flatten the papers on the desk. All are close-ups of empty bullet casings, two where the casings lie on dirty cement floors, and one where the casings are strewn on the earth amongst some fallen leaves. “Is this a consultation? I thought the department had experts on retainer for things like this...”

The Sheriff doesn’t respond. The Sheriff pulls a little plastic baggie out of his jacket. Inside the baggie is a single bullet which he takes out and places on the desk with a metallic click. The Sheriff rolls the bullet over to Mr Argent. “What can you tell me about this bullet?”

Mr Argent doesn’t look away from the Sheriff as he traps the bullet in the cup of his hand before it can roll off the desk. Mr Argent smiles his cordial smile and he lowers his eyes to examine the bullet as the Sheriff requested. He pinches the casing of the bullet between his thumb and index finger and turns it this way and that. “I’d say it’s .45-caliber, semi-jacketed, soft-point. But it’s unusual...”

Mr Argent flicks on his desk lamp and adjusts the head to bring the bulb closer. He holds the bullet under the light and rotates the casing. “I’m not a weapons encyclopaedia, but this bullet doesn’t seem to be commercially manufactured. There should be a mark on the casing that identifies the maker, but...” Mr Argent trails off. His fingers frame a tiny imperfection on the smooth cylinder of the bullet casing. It looks like a little capital ‘L’. Mr Argent blinks but doesn’t look away from the bullet. “It looks custom,” he carries on. “There’s something stamped here. Could be a signature or some sort of notation. The jacket’s not copper or brass, it almost looks like–“

“Silver.”

Mr Argent glances up at the Sheriff’s interruption. He sets the bullet down with the rim resting flat against the desk. “So you already know all about the bullet?”

The Sheriff shrugs. He sits with his elbows on the edge of the desk and his hands folded thoughtfully under his chin. “I had a friend of mine analyze it, but I want a second opinion.”

Mr Argent nods affably. His eyes look extremely pale under the bright light of the desk lamp, the pupils contracted to pin pricks of black. “There’s not much more I can tell you from just looking at it,” Mr Argents says, sliding the bullet back to the Sheriff.

The Sheriff doesn’t pick the bullet up. He lets it sit on the desk between them, just above the photocopies of bullet casings still spread out before him. “Tell me about the tip.”

“It’s soft-point, so the lead interior is exposed without taking on the concave profile of a hollow-point,” Mr Argent says. It sounds like he’s reciting a handbook and he raises an eyebrow at the Sheriff, knowing he’s stating the obvious, but having nothing else to say.

The Sheriff nods along, but ignores Mr Argent’s probing expression. “I noticed you avoided touching the tip,” the Sheriff points out blandly, “and that’s good, because it’s not just lead. The tip is poisoned.” The Sheriff watches carefully as Mr Argent’s eyes widen with surprise.

The Sheriff leans forward, the corner of his mouth tipped up in amusement. The Sheriff’s tone is dry and almost friendly, like he’s sharing a joke with Mr Argent. “Why would someone poison the tip of a bullet? I’d like to know. You’d think that a bullet is deadly enough without adding poison, but some people–“

The Sheriff shakes his head in mocking disapproval. “I had the good fortune of finding two such bullets. Here’s one, and I had my friend take the other apart. Guess what he found?”

Mr Argent takes his cue. “What did he find?”

The Sheriff leans even closer to Mr Argent, his voice dropping to a secretive hush. “Plant matter,” the Sheriff says and his wide eyes are mirrored on Mr Argent’s face. “Yeah, that sounds weird, and I thought it was too, until I had the plant matter identified. It was aconite, or monkshood. And the poison on the tip? It was from the same plant. Now that made me wonder, why would someone make a bullet and fill it with flowers?

“It’s a soft-point bullet. That means the shooter intends for the bullet to fragment upon impact, but not too much, oh no. They want a controlled expansion. They want the bullet to penetrate, and then they want it to break up. They want the tip to make contact and they want the interior to be exposed. This thing is less like a bullet and more like a high-speed shot of poison with a side-effect of massive tissue damage.” The Sheriff huffs out a gruff laugh. “And like I said before, you’d think a bullet is deadly enough without poison, but some people–“ The Sheriff pauses. He doesn’t look so friendly anymore, leaning back to regard Mr Argent from outside the bright light of the desk lamp. “Some people clearly don’t think a bullet is enough. Now, what kind of people would use .45-caliber, silver jacketed, soft-point bullets packed full of wolf’s bane?”  

Mr Argent isn’t smiling anymore and it doesn’t look like he wants to talk, but he asks anyway. “What kind of people?”

The good humour has drained completely from the Sheriff’s face, leaving a cold and serious mask. “You tell me, Chris.”

The air is thick with tension and the guns in the display cases suddenly seem ten times more ominous. Stiles is certain it wasn’t this dim in the office a few minutes ago, but it’s like the world has narrowed to the two men sitting in the spotlight of the desk lamp.

Though Mr Argent has abandoned the facade of the pleasant host, he doesn’t look any more ruffled than he had when offering the Sheriff dessert. His manner has changed tracks, but it’s like he’s simply donned a different shirt, and Stiles guesses it has to do with his profession. Someone with this many guns in their home office must know how to deal with tough customers, and Stiles supposes that includes sheriffs who drop in for unwarranted interrogations.

Despite all of that, the Sheriff isn’t discouraged. The Sheriff taps a finger to each photo on the desk as he speaks. “This was taken six years ago in a condemned apartment complex in Reno. This was taken five years ago in a warehouse in San Francisco. This was taken nearly two years ago in the Beacon Hills preserve.” Each picture shows casings similar to the one wrapped around the bullet on the desk, the tiny capital ‘L’ just visible under scuffs and smudges. “Someone dropped these bullets at the preserve. These same bullets that were fired in those woods, and in San Francisco, and in Reno. I’m only showing you these three places, but I know the trail extends farther than I can track.”

“What are you looking for, John?” Mr Argent asks, straddling a line between courtesy and anger. “What do you think I can tell you? I don’t make ammunition. I only sell.”

“You lived in San Francisco around the time these casings were found–“

“You can’t be serious–“

“You lived in Beacon Hills when these casings were found–“

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Mr Argent throws his hands up, exasperated.

“You’re right. It doesn’t,” the Sheriff says, lowering his voice. “But this does”

Mr Argent’s face goes as pale as his eyes when he sees the Sheriff pull another clear plastic bag out of his jacket. This bag holds a slim black rod, one end deadly sharp, and the other ragged as if it’d been snapped. It’s the broken shaft of an arrow.

“I hear that Allison’s quite the shot.”

“You leave her out of this,” Mr Argent hisses, abandoning all semblance of propriety. He’s practically spitting across the desk. “Whatever crazy theory you’ve got, you can’t possibly think that _Allison_ –“

“I don’t know what to think when I keep finding poison-tipped arrows in the woods where my _son disappeared_ –“

“They were friends! Allison would never do anything to endanger Stiles!”

“Then how about _you?_ ” The Sheriff’s eyes are narrowed to accusing slits. His palms are pressed against the desk like he’s ready to launch himself out of his chair. Mr Argent looks ready to do the same. “Allison’s too young for the earlier incidents, but you aren’t.”

“Are you looking for some sort of confession? Because you’re not going to get one. Reno, San Francisco, Beacon Hills– I wasn’t in Reno six years ago! You don’t have a pattern. Hell, I know for a fact you’re not even on this case. You’re way out of line, Sheriff, and if you don’t drop this right now, I am going to bring such a _shit storm_ down on your head, you’d have better luck breathing at the bottom of the Pacific.”

“Fine!” the Sheriff shouts. “You might not want to help me, but I think Allison will be more than willing–“

“Don’t you dare.”

“I know she was there and I know she saw something–“

“I said it once and I won’t say it again.” Both men stand over the desk now, facing off like they’re about to brain each other with their own skulls. “Leave. Allison. Out of this.” 

By some unspoken agreement, both men have lowered their voices like they’ve suddenly remembered where they are. They might be on the verge of violence, but they’re still in a home office in a nice suburb.

“Just point me in the right direction and I will,” the Sheriff says.

“You have no idea what you’re even looking at.”

“Then enlighten me.”

“There’s nothing to enlighten. You have _nothing_ , John–“ the Sheriff winces “–Don’t you understand? You’re going to kill yourself chasing a ghost–“

“I’m not chasing a ghost–“

“You have to let it go! Your son is dead–“

“My son is _not_ dead!” The Sheriff slams a fist against the desk, toppling the silver bullet and sending it rolling to the floor. It lands with a loud clatter on the hardwood. “Stiles is alive, I know he is! He’s been a pain in the ass since he took his first breath, and that’ll never change–“

“John–“

“Stiles isn’t _gone_! His nagging instinct is probably tingling right now, telling him I’m about to have Pizza Pockets for dinner again–”

“John–”

“Stiles wouldn’t leave his friends and Stiles wouldn’t leave me! Not when I’m at risk of eating myself into cardiac arrest!”

“John–”

The Sheriff stops, the realization that he’s shouting bringing him back to himself.

Mr Argent is staring at the Sheriff, his hands out and palms open like he’s trying to calm a wild animal.

The Sheriff’s face is red and blotchy, and spittle clings to the corner of his lips as he takes ragged breaths through his open mouth. The shadows under his eyes are thrown into sharp relief by the desk light and his cheeks look gaunt, made hollow by the stubble he hasn’t bothered to shave away. His papers are crumpled in his clenched fists and he looks down at his hands with red-rimmed eyes like he doesn’t know how that happened. “If it were Allison,” the Sheriff says, quiet and hoarse from shouting, “would you let it go?”

Mr Argent lets his hands drop slowly to his sides. He doesn’t look angry or defensive anymore. His face is open for the first time tonight, and he looks tired and sad. “No,” Mr Argent shakes his head. “I wouldn’t.”

The Sheriff releases the papers from his fists, shaking his hands a bit to free them from his sweaty palms. He pulls yet another folded square from his pocket, unfolds it, and spreads it out in the middle of the mess on the desk.

It’s the same photo Stiles saw in the Sheriff’s office all those months ago. A man dressed in black, his dark eyes shadowed by dark eyebrows. It’s like Stiles only saw Lawson’s blurry photo yesterday, and he wonders if that same image remains burned into the Sheriff’s eyes even when he’s not looking at the photo.

“Help me.” The Sheriff’s hands tremble where they rest on the edge of the desk. “I know you can.”

Mr Argent just stares for a long time, his eyes flickering over Lawson. His throat bobs and he closes his eyes. When he opens them again, his composure has returned, tinged with a thread of pity. “Go home, John,” he says, shaking his head.

Stiles wishes he could hug his father. He wishes he could drive screeching up the driveway to kick down the door and take his father home. He wishes he could stuff his father with celery and carrots and tell him to leave work at work and just sit back and watch some TV. He wishes he could do more than stand in the corner of the room with his hand shoved against his mouth like any sound could shatter the man stooped over the desk.

Stiles wishes he could tell his father to stop looking.

The Sheriff gathers his things, sweeping the papers together into a crumpled heap he can hold in his hand. He bends down to retrieve the bullet, the movement slow and jerky like he’s aged ten years. He doesn’t look at Mr Argent and Mr Argent doesn’t say anything else.

The Sheriff shows himself out of the office and Stiles follows at his heels.

The house is as brightly lit and pleasant as before, but the Sheriff pays no attention. He walks to the front door and doesn’t see the young woman frozen around the corner, carrying two plates of cake on a tray.

The Sheriff exits the house, closing the front door firmly behind him, but Stiles doesn’t go with him. Stiles stays behind because he sees the young woman’s wide and red-rimmed eyes. He sees the determined set of her lips and he feels the same resolve settle over his shoulders.

The Sheriff will have help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear lord, this fic is so much longer than I expected it would be. I'm so sorry. Slow-build is very, very slow. As always, reviews are much loved. Also, I'm not a gun expert even if I pretend to be, so if I've made any mistakes, I'd love to know.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is now officially the longest fic I have ever written. Read and review, please, as always!

It takes a few minutes for the young woman – Allison, probably – to collect herself after the Sheriff leaves. She takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and marches into the office with a straight back and a raised head, her long hair bouncing with each purposeful step.

Stiles follows her into the office to see that Mr Argent is slumped in his chair and adjusting the desk lamp, trying to move the head back to its original position with one hand. The keyboard and mouse have already been returned to their places, but the desk still looks uncharacteristically sloppy. Mr Argent doesn’t look like he cares.

When he notices that Allison is in the room, he gives up on fixing the lamp, leaving it awkwardly bent by his head.

Allison drops the tray onto the desk, letting the plates and silverware shake and clatter.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Mr Argent groans half-heartedly, eyeing the gorgeous slices of cake in front of him. It looks like a cake baked by a professional, the texture perfect to Stiles’ eye, and the icing smooth and delicate. Mr Argent takes one of the plates like he’s unwilling. It’s not until he has a chunk of cake speared on his fork that he notices Allison’s disapproving silence.

Mr Argent sighs and sets his fork down without taking a bite. “How much did you hear?”

Allison drops into the seat the Sheriff recently vacated. “Enough,” she says, frowning.

“I thought I told you to stop eavesdropping.”

“I thought you told me to always be aware.”

“Would you drop it if I asked you to?”

“No.”

Mr Argent sighs again. His eyes sweep across the bookshelves behind Allison’s head, and Stiles is pretty sure he’s thinking of replacing the wall with a liquor cabinet. Mr Argent props an elbow on his desk and lets his head rest on his fist. He feeds himself a bite of cake.

Allison’s nostrils flare and her eyes narrow. “Why didn’t you tell him? You could’ve given him _something_ –“

“Telling him even a little bit would require telling him everything.” Mr Argent shakes his head, grinding his jaw into his hand. “It’s better that he doesn’t know.”

“Really.” Allison raises her eyebrows. “That’s your argument?”

“It’s true.”

“No it’s not. Ignorance doesn’t protect anyone.”

“It protected you.”

Allison snorts. “Only for a while.”

Allison watches Mr Argent take another bite of cake. He chews slowly, not in a thoughtful manner, but more like he can’t identify what flavour it is. The tired and unhappy expression on Mr Argent’s face leads Stiles to believe the cake looks better than it tastes, though he’s not sure if it’s because of the conversation accompanying the food, or because Allison lacks baking skills.

Allison doesn’t eat the second slice of cake with her father. She sits with her legs neatly crossed at the ankles, her posture stiff and uncomfortable despite the comfy clothes she’s wearing. It looks like she was recently lounging in bed. She’s wearing plaid shorts – which are possibly men’s boxers – and a pastel pink tank top that makes her look younger than the hundred yard stare in her eyes.

“He’s not going to stop just because you won’t help him,” Allison says, still watching her father work slowly through his slice. “How far has he gotten? He has a silver bullet and wolf’s bane. Even if he doesn’t believe in werewolves, he can believe that other people believe in them. He’ll only keep asking– “

She says more, but Stiles is still stuck on the part about werewolves, because what the _fuck_?

“–He already knows about Lawson, doesn’t he?”

Stiles tunes back in to watch Mr Argent scrape some icing around on his plate. “He has a picture...“

“So what’s the point?” Allison pushes the hair back from her forehead, like maybe the dark brown waves of it are keeping her from understanding. “Why lead him on when we can just tell him that Lawson is dead? If he can’t have Stiles back, at least he can have some closure–“

“He won’t get _closure_ –“

“Because no one’s telling him anything–“

“No, because it doesn’t matter that Lawson’s dead.” Mr Argent isn’t done his cake, but he sets his fork down on the plate and the bone china clinks daintily under the silver. “It doesn’t matter that Lawson’s apprentice is dead too, and even if we knew exactly what they did to Stiles it wouldn’t change anything, because there is no _closure_ for this.” Mr Argent shrugs helplessly. “Some things are just like that, Allison.”

Allison doesn’t look satisfied by his response, her pink lips made thin and pale with displeasure. “So you think it’s better for him to just...”

“The only thing we can do is protect him from future danger–”

“By not telling him anything.”

“By not telling him anything,” Mr Argent agrees.

“That’s so stupid.” Allison brings her hands up to rest against the edge of the desk, the sparkly red of her fingernails curled into her palm. She leans forward, catching her father’s eyes with her own. “How can you think that’ll help? It didn’t help _me_. Werewolves exist! Hunters exist! He lives in a town full of them, and you think _not knowing_ will keep him from bumping into what’s right under his nose? You really think you’re _protecting_ him?”

“Yes, I do.” Unlike his daughter, Mr Argent doesn’t sound passionate or outraged, but the quiet firmness in his tone douses the heat in Allison’s eyes. Allison leans back in her chair. Mr Argent picks up the unfinished plate of cake and sets it back in the tray as he speaks, still in that quiet voice. “In our line of work, we are meant to protect and we are meant to defend, but too often we lose sight of our purpose. We forget that when we pick up our weapons, we’re accepting our possible endings and we’re accepting that it’s for a worthy cause.”

Mr Argent strokes a careful finger along the edge of the china plate, tracing the outline of an elegantly painted rose before letting go. He sits back in his chair and curls his hands loosely over the armrests under Allison’s watchful eye. “When you fight against monsters, it’s easy to justify the most terrible things,” Mr Argent says sadly. “Death becomes less of a last resort, and more of a pre-emptive solution, or some sort of weight that’s supposed to balance scales that aren’t _meant_ to be _balanced_. That’s where hunters go wrong. That’s where Kate, and Gerard, and Lawson all lost their way. Even your mother and even us. We’ve all been guilty of these crimes. We’ve all forgotten at one point or another.”

Allison’s head jerks down and her hands flex and release.

Mr Argent glances from the awkwardly bent desk lamp to his daughter. “John’s a good man. He’s the kind of man that won’t just stand there if there’s something he can do. If we told him all about this world of ours, he would leap right in, and he would lose himself.”

Allison shakes her head. “You don’t know that,” she says, but she doesn’t sound as certain as she was just a few seconds ago.

“I do know that,” Mr Argent says. “I’m not protecting him from werewolves. I’m protecting him from himself. He would lose himself because he has nothing else left, and I won’t be responsible for that. Will you?”

Allison doesn’t say anything, but Stiles knows her answer. She looks chastised and petulant, like she wants to keep arguing on principle, but she won’t because some part of her acknowledges what her father has said. Even if she doesn’t agree with everything, she understands enough, and Stiles does too.

Stiles was wrong. If the Sheriff is going to have help, it won’t be from this corner.

Stiles doesn’t stay to see what else they have to say. Stiles closes his eyes and lets the cold numb the tips of his fingers and toes, creeping inwards until he feels thinner than the air. When he opens his eyes again he is on the lacrosse field of Beacon Hills High. The night is a lot darker than it was when Stiles first entered the Argent house, and it prowls around the edges of the field, kept at bay by the bright stadium lights illuminating the grass.

Even though his body is solid again – as solid as his incorporeal body ever gets – he still feels like he’s barely there. It’s like he’s in shock, but he guesses that’s what happens when the world spends an entire day shitting on his face.

First, finding out that the only way he’ll have ‘life’ is by taking someone else’s – which just, _no_ – and then finding out that the Sheriff is still looking for him, nearly two years after everything. And finally, learning that there are _werewolves,_ apparently – and wow, somehow that’s not even as shocking as it should be – and the man who seems to be responsible for this entire mess – Lawson, the fucking bastard – is already dead.

Mr Argent wasn’t exaggerating when he told the Sheriff he was chasing a ghost, but that doesn’t leave anything for the Sheriff. It makes Mr Argent’s cold reasoning that much more logical and that much more difficult for Stiles to stomach. This isn’t a game, but the Sheriff is going to lose, regardless of how the dice rolls.

It’s a testament to how out of it he is, that the next thing he knows it’s daylight and the sun is high in the sky. Also, Camden is standing in front of him, and he’s wearing that fucking _look_ again. “Stiles...”

“Did you know that werewolves exist?” Stiles didn’t mean to open the conversation with that, but it’s out now, and he isn’t even surprised at the lack of surprise on Camden’s face. “So you know that werewolves exist. What else aren’t you telling me?”

Camden shuffles guiltily in place, but Stiles is too tired for this shit. “Stiles, just–“

“No!” Stiles jumps up from the bleachers, stomping angrily down the few steps it takes to reach Camden where he stands on the grass. “I won’t just _let it go_. I am somehow connected to _werewolves,_ and you knew this whole time and didn’t tell me! And you’re always _saying things_ , and _looking at me_ and–“ Stiles claws angrily at the air around Camden’s head, incoherent. “Explain it to me, you giant shit. Why are you always saying we shouldn’t be here? What’s wrong with us being here? Why did you apologize to me, that day in the cafe? Just–“

“Stiles–“

“Camden, why are you _afraid of me?”_

Camden looks at him, stricken, and it shouldn’t feel like he’s kicking a bear cub, but he totally is, goddamnit. “I’m not _afraid_ of you, Stiles.”

“You are.”

“No, it’s not like that...” Camden trails off and Stiles actually takes the time to look at him.

Those shadows under Camden’s eyes are still there, making his eyes larger and his face thinner, but he doesn’t seem tired so much as he seems restless. Camden blinks rapidly and his lips twitch like he’s nibbling on the inside of his lower lip. There’s a weight in his brow that seems to drag his gaze lower, making it hard for Stiles to meet his eyes even though he’s shorter than Camden.

Camden shakes his head and smoothes a huge palm through his hair. “You’re so _young_ , Stiles, in every way–“

“I’m not–“

“You are! I know messengers with grey hair, and I know messengers who’ve been around for hundreds of years. You didn’t even freaking graduate _high school_ , and you haven’t even been a messenger for _two years_ , but you’re so–“ Camden huffs out a deep breath, blowing a stream of air up through the fringe of his hair. He starts again, calmer but no less earnest. “I’m sorry, Stiles. I’m sorry that I haven’t set a better example. Really, neither of us should be in Beacon Hills. It’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“Yeah. After the first fifty years or so we’ll be fine, but before then...” Camden glances up at the sky like the right words will be written in the clouds. Of course, there’s nothing there and Camden has to face Stiles with whatever explanation he can cobble together on his own. “You see, everything’s good so long as you do your job. It’s only when you start going astray, when you start slacking and over-thinking things...”

Camden stares at Stiles for a bit. Words and pressure have never gone well together for Camden, and Stiles waits patiently for him to formulate a new sentence. Camden starts again. “Ghosts exist too, y’know, and I’m not going to fight with you about semantics. I mean ghosts like, spooky wraiths and things that haunt people and shit. Do you know where they come from?”

Stiles can kind of see where this is going. “Us?” he asks.

“Yeah, Stiles, from _us_. Ghosts are _us_.” Camden nods vigorously, and there’s that look in his eye again, but Stiles is beginning to understand what it means. “They’re the messengers who couldn’t handle their jobs. They’re the ones who didn’t make it through the first fifty years, the ones who couldn’t walk away from it all. They clung when they should’ve fuckin’ _let go_ , and they began to remember. The problem is, they only remembered the way they died, and when all you can remember is the way you died...” Camden shudders. “They went mad, Stiles. Some get powerful, but all of them lose control, and fade, and disappear.”

Camden watches for his reaction worriedly, but Stiles just stands there, letting it sink in. “And you think that’s going to happen to us if we stay here?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Stiles says, “I’m not going anywhere. My dad’s here.”

“What?” Camden’s head jerks back, like he needs the extra distance to see Stiles properly. “But you’ve been avoiding your dad–“

“Well, I’m not going to avoid him anymore.”

“But I just _told you_ –“

“I get what you said, but I don’t care.” He doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel conflicted or horrified by the revelation of what could possibly happen to him. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t had enough time to really think about the implications of it all, or maybe it’s because he’s still sort of in shock from the shitastic day that just won’t quit, but he really doesn’t care. He has higher priorities than his sanity.

Stiles shakes his head when he sees how Camden is still looking at him, incredulous. “I was wrong to leave my dad in the first place. You know, this whole time he hasn’t given up on me–“

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“I don’t care,” Stiles repeats. “He’s my dad, even if I can’t remember, and this is my home. This is where I’m meant to be.”

Camden looks like he can’t decide between literally shaking some sense into Stiles or sobbing with frustration. He does neither. “You’re only going to hurt him–“

“I won’t.”

“If you stay here, sooner or later you’re going to start remembering. And when you do–“

“And when I do: nothing,” Stiles says, like it’s that simple. Because it is, really. It feels that simple. “I won’t let myself hurt anyone.”

“You won’t be able to stop yourself.” Camden shakes his head sadly. His eyes have taken on a damp sheen and his lips are twisted unhappily. His voice is rough and serious. “I’m going, Stiles. With or without you.”

And Stiles knew this was coming. He knew it, somehow, as soon as he realized that Camden was standing on the lacrosse field, looking at him with those worried, fearful eyes. He knew but it still hurts now, because Stiles doesn’t want to leave his father, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be alone. Without Camden, that’s what Stiles will be, really. He’ll be alone. And he knows that their paths were decided, long before they each knew what it was they were really doing, but he can’t let this go without a fight. It’s how he is.

“Don’t go,” Stiles says, and god, how does he sound so awkward? His voice is somewhere between strained, tearful, and bossy. He sounds as young as Camden accuses him of being, but that doesn’t make him naive or stupid. It doesn’t.

“Just come with me,” Camden pleads. He takes a step back, but he holds one bear-like hand out to Stiles. “You said we could go anywhere, so let’s go.”

“How do you even know any of this stuff?”

Camden snorts. It sounds kind of thick and snot-filled, and Stiles wishes he’d had the chance to really annoy the fuck out of Camden with more theories about their not-bodies. “I actually listen when more experienced messengers tell me things–“

“So you’re just going to run away because of some rumours?”

“They’re not _rumours_ , Stiles.”

“Well nothing about this is a science. You don’t know for sure what’ll happen. You’ve got iron-clad control, I know you do. You’re, like, the polar bear of the north; the grizzly bear of the mountains! That’s the North American equivalent to being king of the jungle! I know you’re strong enough to stay.”

Camden laughs like the sound’s being punched out of him. “And if I’m not?”

“And if you are?” Stiles counters, but Camden is shaking his head. Camden takes another few steps back that Stiles knows he doesn’t need to take. They can travel miles in the blink of an eye. Camden’s steps are steps taken to draw out the moment. They’ve only been friends for a little under two years, but everything is different when the world is such an empty place. Camden is the only friend he knows.

“What about–“ Stiles swallows. “What about Isaac? He– he needs your help. You’re just going to leave?”

Camden finally lowers his hand. “That’s what I do,” he says. “I leave.”

They don’t say goodbye, not really.

For once, Stiles knows what it’s like on the other side, when he’s the one watching someone close their eyes. Camden blinks and he’s gone. It’s the same for Stiles, only he’s not the one who is somewhere else. The world is the same. It’s just a world without Camden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for staying with me, folks! This is not the even close to the end.


	11. Chapter 11

Time doesn’t mean the same thing to the dead as it does to the living.

The living are obsessed with time. Language is ruled with tenses, and everything that people do revolves around past, present, and future. Everything has a schedule and people are always aware of it, noting the passage of time on their wristwatches and wall clocks, crossing out the dates on their calendars and watching fine wrinkles appear on their faces in the mirror. People document its passage and dream of how to spend it. People fight against it and clamour for more, and that’s fine. That all makes sense. Time is precious because it is limited, and it is the limit of time that gives value to everything in life.

It’s different for Stiles because he is dead. He doesn’t need to eat so he doesn’t measure time by breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He doesn’t sleep, so he doesn’t need to watch the rising and setting of the sun. He doesn’t have appointments to keep and he doesn’t have anyone prodding him to stay punctual. Not even his job takes time into account. Stiles could spend what feels like a hundred years in the office and come out, only to find that ten minutes have passed on Earth.

Stiles only has something resembling a routine because he still bothers with the world of the living.

When the sun rises, Stiles is there at his father’s bedside, trying to yell the Sheriff awake so he isn’t late for work. Most of the time, the Sheriff will stumble out of bed with just enough time to barely shave his face and grab a slice of bread. On the mornings when the Sheriff actually has enough time to brew himself a mug of coffee to go with his slice of bread, Stiles will give himself a pat on the back and pretend it was possible because of his yelling, and not because of the beeping of the alarm clock.

By 8:00 AM, the Sheriff will already be at his desk in the Sheriff Station, ticking through his paperwork and even nabbing some overflow from his deputies. Stiles will tell the Sheriff to focus on his own workload and the Sheriff will not hear him. The deputies will trickle in and wave to the Sheriff. If it’s a Monday, they’ll ask each other about their weekends. If it’s a Wednesday, Tony will bring in a box of donuts and Stiles will try to discourage the Sheriff from eating any. If it’s a Friday, the deputies will talk about their weekend plans to take the kids to this-and-that, or visit family here-and-there, and Stiles will listen, and the Sheriff will listen, and neither of them will say anything.

When lunch rolls around, someone will take everyone’s orders and go pick up enough food to fill the bellies in the station. A few people will always go out to eat at the diner, but those few people never include the Sheriff, not because they’re excluding him, but because the Sheriff declines every time. The Sheriff always takes lunch in his office, nibbling on a burger or a slice of pizza, and nonchalantly corrupting his arteries while Stiles tries to levitate the cheese into the trash can.

People settle into the swing of work after they’ve eaten. It’s late enough that a snail’s pace is no longer excusable, and enough coffee has been consumed to keep the station pleasantly busy. The Sheriff will leave the station, trusting his colleagues not to set fire to their paperwork while he’s gone, and he’ll go on patrol in the cruiser.

The Sheriff doesn’t have a pattern for the route he drives, but he’s thorough, and Stiles likes to ride shotgun, singing at the top of his lungs because the Sheriff never turns on the radio and listening to the sporadic mumble of the scanner gets boring when no real crimes are being perpetrated. Stiles doesn’t really remember any songs, so he mostly makes it up as he goes, stringing together bits he’s heard around the markets in Delhi and the streets of Nagoya. Once, he tried his hand at some Chinese opera blended with some rap he heard performed by a busker in Cardiff, but that didn’t go so well. It’s all an experiment and the lyrics are always nonsense from his mouth, but he thinks the fusions sound interesting, and he wishes he could slap out a beat on the dashboard to add dimension. He makes do with the not-really-sound of his own clapping hands.

After patrol, the Sheriff will roll right back into the station and press himself into his desk for a couple more hours. He’ll be the next-to-last to leave, which the deputies clearly think is an improvement. They’re always eager to see the Sheriff out the door, thinking he’s going to go home to watch some trashy TV or something relaxing like that. It’s sweet of them, especially when Fridays always end with the Sheriff sent home with a container of something homemade and microwavable, but they don’t know what the Sheriff does at home.

Stiles will watch his father on the car ride back to the house. He’ll see the emotion drain from his father’s face, any bit of friendliness or temporary happiness washed away with the setting of the sun. By the time the cruiser is parked in the driveway, the Sheriff is a different man.

The Sheriff doesn’t take his work home anymore, none of his office work, anyway. He will leave his bag on the floor by the door and his jacket hanging off the back of a kitchen chair. He will set his badge and gun down on his bedside table and collect his towel and a change of clothes for a shower.

Stiles waits in his room while his father showers. They are always long showers, and the one time Stiles put his head against the door to listen, all he heard was the sound of running water, like his father was just standing under the stream doing nothing. Still, there’s nothing for Stiles to do at those times but wait in his room for his father to finish. He sits in the office chair by his desk and looks at the dark screen of his laptop, strangely empty without a reflection. He looks at the open chemistry textbook on his desk, the pages almost completely coloured in with neon yellow highlighter. He looks at the pencils and pens spilled on the desk and on the floor where they rolled. He looks at the balled up socks poorly hidden in the corner of his room and the clothes piled on the floor of his open closet. He looks at the unmade sheets of his bed and the anthology of folklore on his bedside table, a ribbon for participating in track and field pressed between the pages, marking his spot, midway between the beginning and the end.

When his father steps out of the bathroom, hair still wet and shirt collar damp with shower water, Stiles will remind him to dry off properly so he doesn’t catch a cold. They’ll walk together to the study and that’s where they’ll spend the rest of the evening and most of the night, the Sheriff scribbling furiously on a legal pad or looking at something on his laptop or making calls to someone, somewhere, always chasing his latest lead. They’ll sit together, staring at the huge corkboard on the wall, now filled completely and decorated with coloured pins and long criss-crossing lines of coloured thread.

When his father is finally too tired to keep his eyes open, he’ll stumble his way up the stairs, Stiles close behind, one hand out like he can catch him if he falls. His father will collapse on the bed, hand flexing, itching for the neck of a bottle, and Stiles will pretend the hand he puts on his father’s shoulder helps. He’ll pretend his father sleeps better because he’s there, and he won’t think about the urn in the living room that’s supposed to be his. He won’t think about how his father lies to anyone who asks, saying he’s moved on, he’s laid his son to rest. He won’t think about the epitaph that is the wall of his father’s study, and he won’t think about the tomb that was once his bedroom.

The night is always longest for Stiles. His father doesn’t sleep with any lights on and the heavy blinds block out the weak beam of the streetlight. It’s so dark in the room, and Stiles always curls up at the foot of the mattress, eyes squeezed shut and shoulders tensed to keep from shaking. He’ll count the tick-tock of the analog clock in the hallway and he’ll count the soft in-out of his father’s breaths. He measures time because he has to. He measures time so the dark doesn’t seem so endless.

Sometimes, he swears that he can hear more than the clock and his father’s breathing. Sometimes it’s like the television has been left on downstairs, even though the television was never on. He’ll hear murmurs and voices, echoing laughs and the muffled noises that come with tears. It’s like there’s a static in his mind, a buzzing fog that fills his senses, because he won’t just hear things.

Sometimes he’ll smell things too, and that’s much more disturbing because scent really isn’t his strongest sense. Slowly, his nose will fill with the scent of car leather and gun oil. He’ll smell pizza and burgers and fries that are somehow specifically curly. He’ll smell the crisp break of lettuce and the aroma of a roasting turkey. He’ll smell the sweet golden-brown of baking chocolate chip cookies, and the clean scent of soft cotton, freshly laundered.

These hallucinations are his worst enemies. They are the unseen claws that hollow his chest, slipping past the fingers he cages over his mouth and nose. It’s at these times in the night that he clings weakly to the sheets tangled loosely around his father’s feet. He’ll sweep his fingers over the edges of the fabric like eventually, maybe, the threads will catch on the pads of his fingers. Like eventually, maybe, one night he’ll tug the sheet just hard enough and his father will wake and his father will see him and his father will know that he’s home, he’s home, he’s home.

Nothing ever actually happens. In reality, the night simply passes as nights do, and the sun rises as it does, and the alarm goes off and Stiles yells for his father to wake up, and the routine begins again.   

Days pass and summer slowly fades to autumn. Stiles watches as the sun spends less and less time in the sky, its rays seemingly dimmer. It’s like its fire is slowly being captured by the leaves which will soon bleed from green to orange to red. Stiles focuses on how pretty the colours will be and he doesn’t think about how this time last year, he and Camden had been laughing at the wardrobe confusion that hits people when seasons change.

It’s on a Friday in September that Agent Wellesley visits his father. He knows it’s September because he’s noticed that school is in session again, and he knows it’s a Friday because Judy made his father a box of vegetable lasagne.

His father is microwaving the lasagne when the door bell rings.

Stiles is surprised, but his father isn’t really. “Adam,” his father greets when he answers the door. He treats it like a neighbour dropping in, and Stiles guesses this isn’t the first time Agent Wellesley has been here. Suddenly, the ‘Adam’ that sometimes calls his father’s study has a face.

“Good evening, John.” Agent Wellesley smiles a little and shuffles his feet on the doormat, careful to wipe his shoes clean. “I wanted to check up on you?”

Stiles’ father is suddenly the Sheriff again, and he frowns at Agent Wellesley’s choice of words. “I’m fine.”

“Oh, no, I don’t mean it like that, I mean–“ Agent Wellesley adjusts his grip on his suit case. He glances back at his car in the driveway, and Stiles looks too. Agent Wellesley’s car is the same black nondescript sedan that had pulled up to the Sheriff Station all that time ago, but Agent Wellesley is alone. Agent Pine is nowhere to be seen. “May I come in?” Agent Wellesley asks hopefully.

The Sheriff opens the door wider and tilts his head in the direction of the sitting room. “I’m eating, but we can talk.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. Sorry to disturb you.” Agent Wellesley bobs his head apologetically and steps inside. He ducks his head under the doorframe even though he isn’t tall enough to hit it. He must be thirty-something, but it’s like he never grew into his body. “I’ll just... I’ll just sit here,” Agent Wellesley says and folds himself awkwardly into the nearest armchair.

The Sheriff doesn’t bother to look at where Agent Wellesley is sitting. The microwave beeped while he was answering the door, so the Sheriff goes into the kitchen to get his food while Agent Wellesley waits.

Stiles plops himself onto the coffee table right in front of Agent Wellesley and sits at a socially unacceptable distance, almost nose to nose with him. Not that it matters, because nobody can see him. Stiles can’t participate in this meeting, but he’s got a damn lot of observation experience under his belt. He’s sure he can tell more than just a thing or two from looking at someone.

Agent Wellesley has his briefcase laid across his lap, his hands folded on top. He’s wearing an off-the-rack suit and a trench coat, even though it’s not that cold yet. The layers of fabric make his gangly frame seem a little bulkier, but it doesn’t make his baby face look any more mature. He’s hunched over like he’s uncomfortable, and he’s surreptitiously checking out the sitting room from beneath the fringe of his wavy brown hair like he doesn’t want to be accused of being nosy. As far as Agent Wellesley knows, he’s not under observation, so Stiles has to assume that this behaviour is genuine. This fits in with the picture Stiles has gathered of Agent Wellesley: an awkward, socially anxious man who doesn’t want to offend anybody. Stiles has no idea how he got into the bureau.

The Sheriff returns with a bowl of steaming lasagne in one hand, and two glasses of fruit juice in the other. Stiles thinks it’s awesome that his father can carry two glasses in one hand, his fingers pinching the rims together. Stiles wonders if he used to try doing the same thing. He bets a lot of good glasses were lost this way.

The Sheriff hands a glass to Agent Wellesley and Agent Wellesley accepts gratefully. He cups the glass with both hands to take a sip, and then lets it rest on his suitcase, still held between his two hands. “It’s been a while,” Agent Wellesley says quietly. “I hope you’re well.”

The Sheriff sits on the armchair across from Agent Wellesley. Stiles moves to the couch, flopping over the cushions so he can see both men at once. The Sheriff sets his glass of juice on the coffee table without using a coaster. It’s going to leave a mark.  

The Sheriff pokes at his lasagne with a fork and shrugs. “Like I said, I’m fine.”

“Yeah, that’s good...”

“What are you here for, Adam?” the Sheriff asks, fixing Agent Wellesley with a considering eye. “Do you have something new for me?”

Agent Wellesley shakes his head. “I don’t have anything new for you, really...” He smiles wryly and releases a soft chuckle. “I think, at this point you have everything I have and more.”

“So why are you here?”

“I’ve been thinking.” Agent Wellesley runs his fingers up and down the sides of his glass. “Last time we talked... I mean, _werewolves_ , I–I thought I was insane, but if you believe that they exist too–“

The Sheriff holds up a hand to stop Agent Wellesley. “I don’t believe that they exist,” he corrects. “I believe that other people think they exist.”

“Oh, I... I see.” Agent Wellesley’s eyes flicker to his lap, disappointed. “I was hoping that you would begin to see...”

“Look, Adam, I appreciate all the help. Really.” The Sheriff puts his bowl of lasagne down on the coffee table. He regards Agent Wellesley tiredly. “You didn’t have to do anything for me– heck, you’re not _supposed_ to do anything for me– but you did, and I’m grateful. You’re–“ The Sheriff pauses, and Stiles can tell he’s having trouble finding a good compliment for Agent Wellesley. “You’re nice.” Stiles wants to laugh, because, wow, Dad. Fortunately, Agent Wellesley doesn’t seem to sense anything awkward about the Sheriff’s behaviour. “And that’s. That’s rare,” the Sheriff continues, “but you’re putting too much stock into what you hear, kid. I know to catch a criminal, it helps to think like one, but you can’t forget that criminals have criminal thoughts, and crazies believe in crazy things. You can’t get lost in the job.”

Agent Wellesley’s shoulders slump. He peers down into his glass and swishes the juice around. “Thank you, I guess,” he says hesitantly.

The Sheriff looks caught off guard. “What for?”

“You’re trying to look out for me, and that’s...” Agent Wellesley looks up through the fringe of his hair. He sighs and sets the glass of juice on the coffee table, careful to use a coaster. “I wish you’d let me return the favour.”

“You’ve done more than enough.”

“John, I understand what it’s like to lose someone–“

“Adam,” the Sheriff says, warning, his face darkening.

“I mean it,” Agent Wellesley continues, not seeming to notice the shift in the Sheriff’s mood. He wrings his hands, and his voice sounds shaky. “Not just to lose someone, but for them to... disappear.”

When Agent Wellesley looks up from his hands, the Sheriff’s face has softened again. The Sheriff still looks uncomfortable, like he’d rather kick Agent Wellesley out of his house than talk about this, but Agent Wellesley’s hangdog expression is an effective deterrent. Agent Wellesley looks at the Sheriff with sad, apologetic eyes that are much too old for his round face. “I’m so sorry, John. For everything that you’ve gone through. For everything you’ll have to go through. I wish this didn’t have to happen to you.”

The Sheriff sighs. “Adam...”

Agent Wellesley shakes his head, schooling his expression back to a mask of somewhat incompetent professionalism. “Here, take this,” he says, opening his briefcase and handing the Sheriff a crisp manila envelope. “I don’t think it’ll mean much to you, but it doesn’t matter what you or I believe. Our perception can only bend reality. It can’t remake it.”

The Sheriff doesn’t seem to know what to make of Agent Wellesley’s words, and he accepts the envelope cautiously like the contents might be explosive. He’s still sitting in his armchair, turning the envelope over to look at the blank front when Agent Wellesley stands up.

“I should go now,” Agent Wellesley says, brushing the creases from the knees of his suit pants. He shoots the Sheriff a little quirk of a smile. “Timothy thinks I went to get oatmeal bars.”

The Sheriff snorts, probably disgusted that people would willingly eat such a thing. “Don’t let Pine boss you around too much, kid.”

“I won’t.” Agent Wellesley shows himself to the door, but pauses with one hand on the knob. “If you... If you ever need to talk to someone– and I know you don’t need to, but I’m just saying– I’m here. Just call...” he says, looking earnestly over his shoulder at the Sheriff.

“Yeah,” the Sheriff says awkwardly. “Okay.”

Agent Wellesley’s smile brightens, unaware of how uncomfortable he’s making the Sheriff. “Goodbye, John.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stiles laughs when the door finally closes. “How is he in the bureau? I totally get badass Agent Pine, but this _dude_. I see nepotism is alive and well.” Stiles shakes his head. “I wouldn’t trust him to watch my back. He’d probably end up shooting me! To think he actually sounded kind of competent when we first met him. How many times do you think he practiced saying all that in front of a mirror, huh, Dad? Dad?”

His father is still looking at the unopened envelope in his hands. His vegetable lasagne is getting cold on the coffee table, and Stiles’ good mood vanishes. “Dad?” He can already tell his father is going to forget to eat – _again_ – and he kind of hates Agent Wellesley for that.

“Dad...” His father stands up, unwinding the string of the envelope as he walks to the study. “Dad...” Stiles doesn’t know why it bothers him so much, but it does. For just a moment, when his father had been telling Agent Wellesley not to let the work suck him in, he’d thought maybe his father would take his own advice. But of course not. Of course not. “Oh my _god_! Just stop!” Stiles screams after him. “ _Eat your lasagne!”_

The ceramic bowl cracks.

Stiles’ hands fly to his mouth.

It’s a hairline fracture neatly dividing the bowl into two halves, not even enough to spill the lasagne, but Stiles is horrified to see it.

That could’ve been the table. That could’ve been the wall, or the ceiling, or his father’s _bones–_

Stiles can feel a chorus of _ohmygodohmygod_ starting up in the back of his throat, but he’s afraid of opening his mouth. He keeps his hands locked over his lips as he stumbles backwards out of the sitting room. He phases through the window, ignoring the odd sensation of passing through cold glass. He keeps backing away, as far from his father as he can go. He doesn’t stop until he’s at the end of the street. Only then does he let himself fall back on his ass to sit numbly on the asphalt. He’s in the middle of the road, but who cares.

The last beams of the sun are barely touching the clouds. The sky is already mostly dark and the streetlights have all come on. Most people are already at home, and Stiles can see the lit windows of the houses, some with the silhouettes of people moving across closed curtains. He can see the distant taillights of a black sedan turning off the street.

He might be screaming a little bit into his hands. When the streetlight above him goes out with a _pop_ , he _knows_ he is screaming into his hands.

“This can’t be happening. Not so soon, no, no, no, no, _no_ ,” Stiles moans. He shoves a fist into his mouth to keep from breaking down, but it’s not very effective. He knows he has to calm down, but how can he?  

He was so _sure_ that he could hold it together, and he’d been doing so well. Why now? Is his limit really only a few months? Weak, weak, weak– Maybe Camden was right, but no, he can’t. He can’t go. Dad needs him, or maybe he needs Dad? What’s happening to him? Is anything happening to him? Maybe he’s just over reacting. But is he? What if he’s already changing? Is there a period of transformation from messenger to ghost? Or is it sudden, like a switch being flipped? Oh my god, what if it’s already happened? When’s the last time he was even in the office? Is he even still a _messenger? Oh my god_ –

The streetlights are flickering around him. He’s not calming down. He has to go. Somewhere else. He doesn’t know where.

Stiles is afraid of shutting his eyes. He’s afraid of shutting his eyes or opening his mouth. Stiles runs because that’s all he has left to do. He’s not leaving. He’s not leaving Dad. He just needs to calm down. Somewhere else. For a while. Just a while. He needs time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then Stiles disappeared forever. The End.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> (Not really. Derek next. Finally, jfc. Read and review as always! Thanks for reading!)


	12. Chapter 12

Some of his father’s afternoon patrols were spent parked on the side of a highway watching traffic pass. They did this from time to time, especially towards the end of summer when people were particularly influenced by the lazy heat and thought they owned the road.

This wasn’t Stiles’ favourite duty, not that he had a say in it. The insects were always buzzing loudly in the tall grass, and although they were strategically hidden by a large shrub, most of the trees were set back from the road so there wasn’t much shade from the forest. The grass didn’t extend very far either, quickly turning into the gravel of the shoulder.

His father would, as usual, be focused on his job. When there were no cars around he would read some of the paperwork he’d brought with him. As soon as he heard the rumble of an approaching engine, he’d set his papers down and watch the car carefully pass. It was a good system, because sound carried well over the smooth asphalt of the road, like the trees and the grass helped channel it to his ears.

Stiles had much less to do, so he would sing loudly out the open window and let his eyes drift to whatever caught his interest. Sometimes it would be a particularly fierce looking bird in the sky. Sometimes it would be a weird looking bug crawling up the side of the cruiser. Once, it was a squirrel on the side of the road.

The squirrel perched on the edge of the asphalt, its bushy tail brushing the gravel shoulder nervously. The squirrel was a normal summer squirrel: brown, furry, nervous-looking, and a little scrawny. There was really nothing special about it, but Stiles watched it because he had nothing else to look at.

The squirrel sat for a while on the edge of the empty road. It peered in both directions, but it didn’t cross. It seemed frightened. It constantly shuffled its paws like the feeling of asphalt was foreign and unwelcome, or maybe the sun-heated surface burned its little feet.

Inevitably, a vehicle appeared on the horizon, moving quickly towards where they were waiting. It was an eighteen-wheeler that seemed to shake the ground as it approached. Stiles could hear the crinkle of paper as his father set his work down to watch the truck. The roar of the truck’s engine seemed deafening to Stiles, drowning out the buzz of the insects and disrupting the silvery waves of heat that radiated from the asphalt.

Stiles watched as the truck came closer, and he watched as the squirrel watched. Stiles could almost see the squirrel’s anxiety growing exponentially. The pebbles and the dust around it seemed to shake. The air moved with the wind of a filling vacuum. The squirrel trembled where it stood.  

Stiles doesn’t understand why it didn’t just wait for the truck to pass. Maybe the squirrel panicked. Maybe the squirrel saw this beast of a thing rushing towards it and thought that it was now or never. Maybe the squirrel simply made an error in judgement and underestimated the speed of the truck, or overestimated its own speed.

Whatever passed through that little squirrel’s mind, Stiles will never know. The squirrel darted out in front of the truck. It disappeared under the shiny red metal of the tractor unit, the semi-trailer, and all its eighteen-wheel glory. When the truck was gone, all that was left to show of the squirrel’s journey was a smear on the asphalt, as shiny and red as the cab of the truck that had killed it.

If it made a sound as it died, Stiles didn’t hear it.

“Did you see that?” he’d asked his father, but of course his father hadn’t heard him. It was also obvious that, no, his father hadn’t seen the squirrel. His father returned to his papers, and the next time he put them down it was time to start the car so they could head back. By then, the shiny red smear had dried into a dull brown grit on the road.

It pissed him off. He doesn’t know why, really. Okay, maybe he does. That squirrel just died. _Right there_. That squirrel was _right there,_ and then it wasn’t, and no one but Stiles saw. And even _he_ didn’t care. Did he try to save that squirrel? Nope. Did he try to warn the squirrel not to risk its stupid squirrely life? Nope. Did the squirrel die and Stiles sit there and watch? Yup. That sure happened.

Maybe Stiles couldn’t have helped the damn thing. He is, after all, dead as dead can be. But maybe he could’ve. Point is he hadn’t even tried, and– and–    

Stiles doesn’t know why he thinks about that squirrel now of all times. Maybe because he’s running up that same road, except it’s miles yet before the road becomes a highway. He really isn’t that close to the spot where the squirrel was squished. He’s actually closer to the preserve.

Maybe he thinks about that squirrel because he spent the last half hour running through town, yelling in people’s faces. He yelled at them because they were just _in the way_.

“RUN,” he’d told them. “RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN–“

But these people have _no fucking instinct_ for survival. Stiles could probably explode their heads with nothing but his _mind_ , and they completely _ignored him_. Like he wasn’t broadcasting the fucking power to kill. Like he wasn’t wailing louder than a siren. Like the streetlights weren’t going haywire around him. Like the fucking animals weren’t going nuts and the temperature hadn’t dropped to ball-shrinking lows.   

It’s fucking dark and now he’s somewhere-on-the-road, and _somewhere-on-the-road_ is the last place Stiles wants to be, because inevitably some vehicle will appear on the horizon and he will crash that motherfucker, but there’s nowhere else to go. Not the park, where there are some stupid young couples macking on the benches, PDA all over, and not the lacrosse field, because some assholes are practicing on it with shit skills that’ll never get them on the team. The suburbs are out of the question. He’s not even going to consider downtown. There’s nowhere else in Beacon Hills, because the one time he really wants to be _alone_ – _needs_ to be alone – people pop out of the woodwork like an incurable fungus.

To think that everyone is going about their business – having take-out dinners, watching trashy reality TV, wiping their asses – while he’s out here, stumbling around with nowhere to go. He could make all the streetlights _burn_ and no one would ever know he was the one who did it. He could disappear and no one would even _know_ , because no one even knows he’s _here,_ _Jesus fucking Christ_.

He doesn’t even know why he’s so mad. Maybe he’s not actually. Maybe it’s just. It’s just too much. He’s just – he doesn’t want to be like _this_ – and then...

These thoughts creep up on him from time to time. What comes after this? What will happen to him if he dies whatever death comes to messengers and ghosts? If he disappeared, would that really be the end? If he disappeared, would he really be gone, totally, completely, one hundred percent gone? If he disappeared, would anyone _know_ he’d gone? Would his father feel his absence? Would he know he’d been here, hovering somewhere between life and death? Or maybe he was never here, because he’s Stiles, but maybe not. Hell, does it even matter? As far as anyone knows or cares, he _is already gone._   

He makes it all the way to the preserve, sprinting from streetlight to streetlight like the shadowed ground between each is a mire of snapping jaws. He is _this close_ to just– He doesn’t even–   

The worst thing is, though, that when he gets as far as he’s willing to go – to the burnt house just outside the woods – he’s _still_ not alone.

There’s some ass-hat next to the house, beating the shit out of a tree like it personally offended him. And this isn’t really the time, and Stiles really isn’t in the mood, but to put it bluntly, the guy is fucking gorgeous. Stiles can tell, because he’s dead, but he’s not _dead,_ and even in the not-light of the not-very-bright-moon the guy has a very nice jaw line. It’s like the burnt house is a spawning ground for ridiculously attractive and mentally disturbed men, because first Peter, and now _this_ , and Stiles really, really just can’t deal with it right now.

Stiles doesn’t know what the guy’s even doing, but whatever his purpose, his actions are pretty damn violent. Were Stiles alive, he’d hightail it out of there, but he’s got nothing to fear from some fists of fury and rage issues, so he ends up just staring as the guy puts the tree in its place, punching into it again and again. His bare fists are a bloody mess and Stiles winces in sympathy although the guy doesn’t seem to register pain. He’s like a machine, a human axe intent on felling the tree. He just keeps at it, sweaty muscles straining under a grey wife-beater as he strikes the tree like it’s the source of all life’s evils.

It’s cathartic. Vicariously so.

Watching some crazy dude pummel a tree with his bare firsts in the dark shouldn’t calm him down, but it kind of... does.

It’s like the sight is so ridiculous and unexpected that Stiles sort of forgets what had stirred him into a panic in the first place. Almost.

Okay, he tells himself. Okay. So, he broke a ceramic bowl. He’s broken things before. Accidents happen. And, hey, no one was hurt. It’s forgivable, right, if no one is hurt? Everyone loses it once in a while, heck, look at this guy brutalizing that tree. He might actually be on to something, some sort of forest therapy, some sort of call of the wild thing. Like pissing his stress away through his fists. Yup.

Stiles can’t do the same thing, but maybe the bowl breaking was a sign. Maybe he was approaching this all wrong, following his father around nearly 24/7. After all, everyone needs space and time to decompress. He might not have a body, but that doesn’t make mental health any less important.

Stiles nods to himself, because yes, everything is just great. Fantastic. Awesome. Two thumbs up. No harm no foul. He takes a deep breath in, and lets it out in a long exhale. He might not have any real need for oxygen, but going through the motions of the breathing exercise makes him feel better. Listening to the rhythmic sound of fists against bark is almost like counting the tick-tock of a clock, and that helps too.

He should probably be more concerned about permanent damage, both to the guy and the tree, but really, whatever floats his boat. Only, Stiles swears he sees a particularly brutal hit embed a splinter between the guy’s fingers, and not a wuss of a splinter, but something almost four inches long that Stiles considers classifying as a small stake.

Fortunately, it’s at this point that a figure appears just outside the clearing of the burnt house.

At first, Stiles mistakes it for someone else, but as the figure steps away from the trees and into the weak light of the moon, Stiles can see that it’s Isaac. Seeing him strikes something painful inside Stiles, but he brushes it aside like everything else he can’t deal with.

“Derek,” Isaac says as he approaches the violently angry man who’s trying to pulp a tree with his bare hands.

The man – Derek – stops suddenly, seemingly snapped out of his fit of rage by Isaac’s calming tone. He lets his bloody fists – they’re definitely bloody, Stiles can see the liquid shine – drop to his sides and turns to face Isaac. Stiles really hopes that Isaac knows what he’s doing. Stiles might be good at accidentally breaking glass, but he’s not sure if he can disable backwoods axe murderers on demand.

“You’re done with your shift?” Derek asks Isaac. His voice is surprisingly soft.

“Yeah. I only had to dig one tonight,” Isaac says. He hooks his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans and rocks back on his heels. “We should head back.”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees.

There’s no arguing or exclamations of surprised horror. Isaac doesn’t seem bothered to find his friend breaking his hands against tree trunks in the moonlight, and Derek doesn’t act like anything’s out of the ordinary. Stiles can only conclude that this _is_ ordinary. That Derek does this regularly. That Derek regularly spends time alone at night next to a burnt out house, punishing a tree and his own fists for god knows what reason. They even seem to have carpooling as part of the routine, because Isaac just got off from his job – whatever that is – and now Derek is climbing into the driver’s seat of the only car parked in the clearing, and Isaac’s riding shotgun.

Stiles doesn’t know how he feels about Isaac being friends with such a disturbed individual, but then he notices that Derek is wiping his hands off on a rag. Derek tosses the rag into the backseat and sets his hands on the steering wheel. Clean.

Clean, as in, there is no blood. Clean, as in, there are no wounds. Clean, as in, there are no splinters or lacerations or brutal flayed bits hanging off of the bare bones of his knuckles. Derek’s hands look as smooth and unblemished as a hand model’s hands, and Stiles’ mouth drops open in shock.

He spins around to check the tree that Derek had been destroying and – no – the tree definitely shows signs of being savaged. There is actually a slight concave hollow in the tree, like the fibres of the trunk have been compressed over time. The bark in the center of that spot has peeled away and the surface underneath looks cracked and rough with splinters. There are also dark smears of blood, fresh and very, very real.

Either Derek is a magician practicing the least child-friendly act ever, or his hands healed in the space of seconds. Stiles is inclined to believe the latter, and while that might sound crazy, it really isn’t. Stiles is, after all, a voyeuristic spirit who’d been sitting in on a meeting about werewolves several hours ago. It’s possible that, maybe, Stiles has just stumbled upon the werewolf in Beacon Hills.

Stiles doesn’t really think about it beyond that. He phases into the backseat of the car before Derek can drive off, and spends the rest of the ride listening to Derek and Isaac chat quietly about the day. From what he can gather, Isaac digs graves and tends to the cemetery when he’s not in class, and Derek does nothing. Well, he probably does _something_ , but Isaac doesn’t ask and Derek doesn’t volunteer information.

After about fifteen minutes, they get to a little housing complex just outside the woods. It’s shabby and old. The wood siding is multi-coloured with bad patch jobs, and the roof is missing a few shingles here and there. It looks like the doors might have once been white, but the paint is peeling and grey now. Some of the windows are shuttered in a way that looks permanent, like the hinges have rusted them shut.

The front doors of the complex face the street, but Derek drives into an alley that loops around the back. Here there’s a large, corroded dumpster and two parked cars, a beat up Ford pick-up and a station wagon. No one living here seems to care much about maintenance, because the grass has grown tall and it looks like the woods are slowly creeping towards the complex, spreading weeds and roots through the many cracks in the asphalt. The end unit is the only one with any lights on.

Derek parks the car behind the end unit, and he and Isaac get out. Stiles follows them as they climb up a couple of crooked, concrete steps to reach the backdoor. They don’t pause to unlock the door because it’s already open, save for a creaky screen door which wails as they pry it open, and screams as it slams shut. They pass by a staircase leading into an unfinished basement and through a tiny little kitchen into what seems to be the main room of the unit.

The inside of the unit is a dozen times more appealing than the outside, but it’s still nothing impressive. Mostly, it’s better because it seems... homey. From the top of the staircase leading into the basement, Stiles had been able to see lines of clothes hanging to dry. The kitchen is small and cramped, but the counters are crowded with boxes of cereal and snacks, and it’s like they forced the kitchen to include a breakfast nook, cramming a rickety table into the corner surrounded by four tiny chairs. The den boasts a flat screen television – which looks extremely odd hanging there, like it fell through a wormhole and found its way onto the wall of a cave – and a large, lumpy looking sofa. There are cushions and blankets thrown around on the sofa, and newspapers piled on a large wooden chest that serves as a coffee table. There is also a rather grand armchair in the corner of the room, positioned under a standing lamp that survived the 1930s.

Sitting in the armchair is Peter. Peter who looks up from his newspaper as they approach, and freezes as his eyes lock onto Stiles.

Stiles quickly ducks behind Derek’s broad back, but it’s too late. Stiles glances over Derek’s shoulder to see that Peter’s face has frozen into a surprised little smile.

“What are you looking at?” Derek asks Peter, shifting slightly. His feet spread as though he wants a wider and more unshakable base. His hands flex at his sides.

Peter doesn’t spare Derek a glance. He stares at Stiles and his smile widens in proportion to the scowl growing on Stiles’ face. “The most beautiful soul.”

Stiles snorts at the same time Isaac clears his throat.

“Okay, I’m going to go to bed.” Isaac says, edging over to the staircase leading to the upper floors. “And lock my door,” he adds, bolting the rest of the way.

“Do you _want_ people to think you’re crazy?” Stiles asks. He scrunches his nose, somewhere between confusion and disgust. Peter just has that effect on him.

“I don’t mind,” Peter says. When he notices that Derek is still watching him, Peter says, “I don’t mind cooking dinner tomorrow night, Derek,” and blinks innocently. He shakes out the newspaper still held between his hands and casually turns the page. “Make sure the pantry is stocked with more than Spam by then.”

Stiles can’t see Derek’s face from where he’s standing, but Derek’s posture relaxes and his voice sounds disapproving. “You better not be like this in public.”

Peter laughs lightly to himself and re-crosses his legs. He leans back in his armchair with his newspaper like a lord in his house. The image only lacks a burgundy robe with his initials monogrammed on the breast, but he does pretty well with his black oxford shirt. “Or what?” Peter raises one eyebrow. “You’ll have Boyd chauffer me again? The boy has better things to do than be my keeper.”

“If you stopped doing things like this, then maybe I’d believe that–“

“You hardly have the authority to measure my sanity,” Peter sniffs. He actually sniffs. Not just haughtily, but with the exaggeration of taking air in through his nose. “If anything, I’d say I’m doing much better than you. Does it make you feel better, punching trees?”

“Peter,” Derek says, voice low with warning. He takes a half-step forward.

“I suppose it would feel more grounding than fruitlessly combing the woods for the hundredth time–“

Derek is suddenly across the room with a crash. The movement is almost too fast for Stiles to catch. It’s a dark blur that ends with Peter pinned against the wall, his body awkwardly draped across the arm of his chair and the lamp tipped onto the floor. Derek looms threateningly over Peter’s awkward sprawl, his hand clamped over Peter’s throat, tight enough to whiten the skin around his hand and redden Peter’s face. Somehow, Peter has retained his hold of the newspaper without tearing it.

“What is wrong with you tonight?” Derek asks Peter quietly with that soft voice of his, eyes scanning Peter’s face suspiciously. He isn’t out of breath and it looks like he’s using no strength at all, but the way Peter’s veins are raised tells a different story. It’s somehow more frightening to Stiles, to see that Derek hasn’t lost control. Derek is deliberately compressing Peter’s windpipe.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Peter gasps, somehow managing a smug grin. Peter’s eyes drift past Derek to land on Stiles again. “There’s nothing wrong at all. I’d say– it’s a very good night.”

When Peter doesn’t say anything else, Derek turns his head to follow the line of Peter’s gaze.

Stiles feels skewered, seeing Derek’s face clearly for the first time. In the slanted light thrown up from the overturned lamp, Derek’s eyes are sunken in the shadow cast by his high cheekbones, but they remain sharp and bright, the hazel seeming to slide into green as his eyes shift focus. His dark eyebrows furrow further and his scowl etches deeper into the set of his jaw.

When Derek turns back to Peter, Stiles slumps into the wall behind him. He almost phases through the dry wall, but recovers with a smothered yelp. He feels faint. Light. Derek’s gaze was grounding in a way that doesn’t make sense. Stiles feels like he might float away without the pressure of those eyes on him. Maybe it’s a trick of the light or Stiles’ imagination, but it had felt like Derek was actually _looking at him,_ even though he knows it’s not possible. It felt like it, and it makes him wonder what it would be like, if Derek actually could see him.   

It only takes a few seconds for Stiles to clear his thoughts, and when he does he notices that Peter is still watching him.

“Well keep it to yourself,” Derek says, giving Peter’s throat one last squeeze before releasing him. Derek steps back to give Peter room to straighten up in his chair. “You’re practically an Omega. Don’t make it any worse for yourself.”

“Such a caring Alpha, so very kind and forgiving,” Peter drawls, folding his newspaper closed with efficient fingers.

“I don’t get you, Peter. It’s like you _want_ me to kill you,” Derek says in a conversational tone, watching Peter set his newspaper down. “And I should. I wasted weeks renegotiating the peace _you_ almost destroyed.”

“Did I ever apologize for that?” Peter picks the lamp off the floor and sets it back on its base. The lampshade is crooked and won’t straighten despite Peter’s attempts to tug it into place. Peter frowns at the lamp. “No? Well I’m sorry things didn’t turn out well–“

“Well for _you_ , you mean–”

“Yes.” Peter shrugs, unconcerned. “But good job with the negotiations. I guess you’re not a _complete_ failure of an Alpha–”  

Derek cuts Peter off, grabbing his left hand and turning it palm-up under the light. The skin of his palm is shiny with scar tissue. “I see your hand still hasn’t healed,” Derek dryly remarks. “Here, let me jump-start the healing process.” Derek’s hand tightens around Peter’s forearm like he’s about to rip Peter’s hand off.

“I’m fine. Thanks,” Peter bites out. He stares at Derek, and then – with what seems like a good deal of effort – lowers his gaze to the floor. Derek lets go with a smirk.

“If you’re sure,” Derek says. He steps back from Peter.  

Peter takes the opportunity to get out of the armchair and quickly slinks past Derek. “Goodnight, nephew,” Peter says, but he doesn’t look at Derek as he says it. He looks at Stiles and inclines his head ever so slightly, signalling that Stiles should follow him up the stairs.

Stiles glances back at Derek to see that Derek is still watching Peter warily. When he looks to Peter again, the staircase is empty and Stiles can hear Peter’s footsteps padding away.

Stiles only hesitates for a moment before stepping onto the staircase. He climbs slowly and tries not to linger in the empty space that Derek watches. Stiles has to remind himself that no matter how it feels, Derek can’t actually see him.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. It was tough, getting back to work after such a lovely break. :(  
> Hope you enjoy my blood and sweat.

When Stiles reaches the top of the staircase, there is only one door left open in the dark hall. He approaches it warily and steps inside the small room to see that it’s pretty empty. There’s a small single bed with neatly made sheets as plain as the walls of the room. There’s a tiny writing desk and chair in the corner, situated under a window. The dusty blinds are drawn closed, matching the accordion-style closet doors. There is no light hanging from the ceiling and there isn’t even a lamp on the desk. The only light comes from the thin gaps in the blinds, but it’s not enough for Stiles to see much by, and his back stiffens with more tension than a little jail cell of a room warrants.

Stiles is not surprised to feel a breeze behind him as the door swings shut with a quiet click. Peter emerges from the corner, his eyes flashing in the dark like a predator’s. It doesn’t make Stiles feel any better and he automatically backs up so he stands in the center of the room. Stiles lifts his head and plays it off as something he meant to do. “Oh yeah, ‘cause a door is going to do _so much_ ,” Stiles scoffs.

Peter ignores his comment. “I didn’t expect to see you again, let alone here,” Peter says, his voice a whisper. Because of super-hearing, probably, and the reminder of what a sneaky asshole Peter is helps Stiles stomp down his unreasonable fears.

Stiles crosses his arms. “I wasn’t looking for you.”

“That’s a shame,” Peter replies absently. He brushes past Stiles – passing closer than necessary, but Stiles doesn’t move another inch – to reach the window and pull the blinds open. The room is towards the front of the unit, so the orange of the streetlight outside filters in, illuminating a few sheets of paper on the desk. From where Stiles is standing, he can’t make out the details, but the papers look like printouts of scanned pages with indecipherable writing.

“So you’re all werewolves,” Stiles says, deciding to be blunt. There’s no use dancing around the topic. Peter didn’t try very hard to hide anything downstairs and Stiles isn’t a moron. “And Derek searched the woods so... You knew me. Before.”

“That’s correct.”

“And you didn’t tell me earlier.”

Peter shrugs. He takes a seat in the desk chair, straddling it backwards and laying his forearms across the backrest. “It was irrelevant.”

“Uh, _no_. It was pretty fucking _relevant_ ,” Stiles almost snarls, anger quickly rising. He advances, stopping just out of Peter’s reach. Stiles glares at Peter, but Peter stares serenely back and that only pisses Stiles off _more_. “Derek really _should_ kill you.”

“We’ve been over this.”

“ _Oh_ , I bet we have.”

“Do you remember anything more now?” Peter asks, but it’s clearly rhetorical because he doesn’t pause to give Stiles time to answer. “No? That’s inconvenient. It’s very tiring, you know, rehashing the details of our working relationship.”

“Our _working relationship?_ ” Stiles repeats, incredulous.

“I’m being generous, but yes. We were quite the team.”

Stiles laughs, a strangled sound that is way too close to a donkey’s bray. Peter doesn’t comment on it. Peter doesn’t do anything but sit and watch creepily as Stiles catches his breath.

“What a joke!” Stiles crows when he’s sure he won’t dissolve into hysterical laughter. His eyes narrow. “You’re clearly the pariah in this little puppy pile here. Even if I used to be a part of all this, there’s no way we were a _team_. I can barely tolerate you right now!” Stiles punctuates this with a wide sweep of his hand, like he’d shove Peter out the window if he could.

“That’s a little harsh.” Peter pouts, the expression barely visible when his face is turned away from the light of the street. “What have I ever done to you?”

“I don’t know! Probably lots of things. You’re _evil_.”

“Am I the villain, really?” Peter’s voice is deadpan. “I only ever have the pack’s best interests at heart, Stiles, and there was a time when we saw eye to eye.”

Stiles can feel that ugly laughter bubbling up again, right next to the anger still warming his skin. “You’re lying. You’re creepy as hell, and your whole spiel about bodies and _people_ –“ Stiles nearly spits. “I’d never see _eye to eye_ with you. _And I’m taller than you_ , so this wouldn’t even happen in a literal sense.”

“And yet it did. Figuratively.” Peter huffs. “Pretend all you want, but you’re no young, innocent thing. You don’t remember, but we are so very similar. We serve the pack, Stiles. You were to Derek what I was to his parents.”

Stiles masks his surprise. He didn’t expect Peter to drop any more information – being the knowledge mongering bastard he is – and he can’t stop himself from demanding details. “And what’s that?”

“A good leader is respectable. A good leader is trusted. A good leader needs to stay good,” Peter says, because he can’t stop being cryptic for more than one goddamned minute. “That was my job, once. It’s not a job that anyone ever asks for, but somebody always fills it.”

Stiles wrinkles his brow and the corner of his lip twists down. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asks, but it comes out with a lot less heat than he intended. Stiles is still pissed, of course he is, but the fire of it stalls somewhere in the back of his throat like heartburn.

“Derek’s all bark with no bite,” Peter says patiently. “He always hesitates. He never commits. He wants so hard to believe in alternative solutions that if he is presented with one, he will cave in a heartbeat. But I know– and you knew, once– that some things simply must be done.”

Stiles is ready to shake a straight answer out of Peter, he’s so frustrated. Except maybe it has less to do with frustration and more to do with the awful weight curling in the bottom of his chest cavity, dousing him with cold like Peter’s words slipped unfiltered through his defences. He’s confused, and he doesn’t know what the fuck Peter is saying. He doesn’t know, he really doesn’t know.

Stiles takes a deep, unneeded breath. In and out.

“Do you know the name ‘Lawson’?” Peter asks, lifting a hand to examine his nails.

Stiles forces himself to keep it under control. At least outwardly. “I died because of him,” he says, frowning because Peter’s steering the conversation somewhere – probably nowhere good – but he’s too damn curious to turn back.

Peter hums to himself and puts down his hand, apparently satisfied with the state of his fingers. “In a way, but I’m sure your sources don’t have all the facts. What do you know about him?”

“I know he’s dead,” Stiles purses his lips, thinking back. “I know his favourite colour was black. He was into the occult, he had a fan club, and he’d made others ‘disappear’ before. He obviously wasn’t some run of the mill psycho.” Stiles doesn’t tell Peter about the cases his father tied Lawson to. He doesn’t tell Peter about the silver bullets and the rituals. He doesn’t tell Peter about Lawson’s methods, about how Lawson only ever appeared in towns with strange ‘animal attacks’. He doesn’t talk about the many people – the many creatures – he suspects Lawson must’ve picked off all across the states over the years, unchecked and undocumented. “He was a hunter, and until now I didn’t get why he’d go after me, but if I was in cahoots with you all...” Stiles swallows thickly. “Was I collateral damage?”

Peter chuckles. “You couldn’t be ‘collateral’ even if you tried. You’re far too nosy. Your only saving grace is your impeccable aim with a gun. Probably something to do with being the Sheriff’s kid, not to mention all the extra practice you did in the woods.”

“Huh.” He can’t quite believe that. He’s seen his hands. They’re bony and twitchy and... and he could easily identify many of the guns in Mr Argent’s office. Stiles shakes his head and returns his attention to Peter. “So what happened?”

“Lawson and his goons came, chasing down a rogue Alpha, a werewolf whose family had been decimated,” Peter says, giving no sign that he noticed Stiles’ distraction. “He discovered the pack in the process and tried to kill every werewolf in town. He nearly got us several times, but we prevailed.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

Peter smiles a small, enigmatic smile that Stiles really doesn’t like. “Oh, it wasn’t.”

“Okay... Where was I in all this?”

“You did what you did best. You researched, planned, and attracted trouble like sharks to blood.” That’s a pretty violent simile, but Peter’s smile turns fond like the thought of Stiles in danger is part of the good ol’ days. “You were involved in almost every confrontation with Lawson and his men, despite his effort to keep you uninvolved.”

Stiles mouth drops open. “Lawson tried to protect me or something?”

“They only ever roughed you up a little. You were probably more like a pest to them than anything, though two incidents stand out in my memory.” Peter hums and scratches his chin thoughtfully. “The first, when his men broke into your house.”

“They broke into my house?” Stiles’ eyebrows rise. “The Sheriff’s house?”

“It was all very easy for them, very subtle. When your window is open at all hours, some people take it as an invitation to enter.” There’s a strange quality to Peter’s voice, almost teasing, but Stiles brushes it off, more interested in the information he’s revealing.

“What did they take?”

“Nothing, according to you.”

Stiles frowns. “And the second incident?”

“Lawson had with him an entourage of three men and one boy. The men all came to rather unpleasant ends.” Peter doesn’t need to go into detail about that for Stiles to have a good idea of what he means. He has no memory of seeing Peter do much more than walk, sit, or drink iced tea, but Stiles has an active imagination and Peter has a certain disturbing aura.

Still, Stiles needs to know at least one thing, so he asks, with only a slight pause of hesitation. “And the boy?”

Peter doesn’t answer right away. His head is turned in such a way that his expression is now completely hidden in shadow. The glare of the streetlight outside is an annoyance Stiles can’t avoid without taking a step back, and he isn’t willing to take that step back to escape the night blindness. Somehow, it’s more important to him that Peter not think he’s retreating for any reason at all, and maybe Peter really does know something about his character and his history with dangerous situations. This kind of stubborn attitude when confronted with a man with shark like teeth – wolf like teeth actually – can’t be good for the health.

Peter sounds the same as ever when he speaks. “I wanted to take care of him too–”

“ _Take care_ of him.” Stiles gapes.

“I was, of course, outvoted, and we let him go.” Peter shrugs. It’s not a guilty shrug or an apologetic shrug. It’s an asshole’s nonchalant shrug, the kind that tells Stiles that Peter isn’t too bothered, but he definitely doesn’t feel like he’s in the _wrong_. “I’ll admit he was quite young, but you’d be surprised what the young can do.”

“What the _hell_ is wrong with you?” Stiles asks. “No wait, stupid question.” Stiles waves a hand in Peter’s direction to quiet any smartass response. If he were standing just a bit closer he would’ve accidentally slapped the bastard with that hand. Hell, he probably would’ve done it intentionally.

Stiles takes a deep breath and tries to focus on his original line of questioning – or, the line of questioning he started after Peter began steering the conversation. It’s just a conversation, sure, but conversations with Peter always feel laden with mines, like a slip of the tongue – one wrong question, too much ignorance revealed, too much _reliance_ shown – would be the equivalent of handing Peter a dagger to put in his back. “Okay,” Stiles says, even though nothing is okay. “If Lawson didn’t kill me, and his men all died, and this kid ran away, then _what the hell happened to me_?”

“Derek was the last person to see you. Apparently, after the final encounter with Lawson, you asked him to visit you later in the night. You asked him to drop in through your window.” Peter’s head tilts and a thin beam of light reveals a flash of a smirk, but the smirk disappears in an instant. “And he did, but you weren’t there. He tracked you to the woods and that’s where the trail ended...”

Peter falls into silence, as if lost in thought or maybe reliving that night.

Stiles imagines what it must have been like. He doesn’t know Derek well – he doesn’t remember knowing Derek well – but he knows what blood looks like trailing slowly over warped wood and the way it glistens on swollen knuckles.

In his mind’s eye, he can see Derek climbing through his bedroom window, wearing fresh clothes that aren’t stained with the blood, sweat, and dirt of a battle. Perhaps he’d had a few injuries, hastily treated with bandages he’d wrapped himself, reluctant to let others tend to his wounds. Derek seems like the kind of person to do that – standoffish and always in control. He probably hated letting other people see him in less than all his muscley, scowly glory.

His room has three good places to sit. There’s the office chair in front of his desk, the high-back swivel chair by his bed, and his bed. Somehow, it’s easiest to envision Derek sitting in the high-back swivel chair, probably reading one of the books stacked nearby just to pass the time. Maybe even the massive encyclopaedia. With his were-vision, he wouldn’t have needed to turn on any of the lights to read, and he would’ve sat there waiting for who knows how long in the dark. Derek waited for Isaac to finish his hours-long graveyard shift – a literal graveyard shift – without complaint. While he’s quick to anger when it comes to Peter, it’s clear that Derek is capable of patience. Stiles wonders how much patience Derek had for Stiles.

Maybe Derek sat there for half an hour, an hour, two hours or more, his focus divided between his book and the sounds of the world around him. The frequency with which the pages of the book turned would’ve dropped as time passed, as Derek’s attention drifted more and more often to the clock, counting the minutes ticking by, each one marking another moment that Stiles wasn’t where he’d promised to be.

He doesn’t know at what point Derek’s patience wore thin, or when his anger turned to worry, or when his worry turned to fear, but eventually Derek would’ve called their friends. As each call ended with the same _don’t know,_ Derek would’ve been spurred into action, multitasking by calling his next contact at the same time he tried to pinpoint Stiles with his own senses. As a werewolf, he probably followed Stiles’ scent, but that couldn’t have been easy to pick up when it was undoubtedly overlapped by a multitude of newer, stronger scents.

The most terrible part would’ve been where the trail ended, not because it ended with Stiles’ corpse, but because it ended without explanation. Whether Derek came to a stop at the edge of the woods or in the middle of it, he’d found nothing. He must’ve expanded his search, first darting off in any direction he imagined carried Stiles’ scent. He would’ve relied on all of his senses to help him. His nose to pick up the trail that he’s lost; his ears to listen for the rustle of dry leaves or the inhale-exhale of human breath; his eyes to look through the shadows for the slightest hint of movement. At some point he would have changed tactics, maybe walking in an ever widening spiral in the hopes of methodically eliminating every place that Stiles _wasn’t_. Stiles doesn’t know how long Derek spent looking for him that first night. He only knows that Derek hasn’t stopped.

The knowledge that Derek still goes out some nights to comb the woods is another heavy weight around his neck. Here is one more pain that Stiles has caused, whether Derek was close to Stiles, or whether Derek just felt responsible for Stiles since he was the last person to see him. It makes Stiles wonder how different things would’ve been, if he hadn’t woken to see the moon on a winter night; if instead, the first thing he’d seen had been a face with eyes that could see him too.

It’s too much to dwell on.

“I don’t understand,” Stiles says because his mind can comprehend, but his heart can’t.

Peter cocks his head. Stiles can feel his evaluating gaze, even though he can’t see his eyes. “Do you want to know what I think happened?”

“Not really, no.”

Peter shares, anyway. “I think you knew it wasn’t over,” he says, quiet and serious. “I think you knew just as well as I did that the people who run in Lawson’s circle don’t stop just because you win one battle. I think you told Derek to meet you so that he could sound the alarm if something went wrong. I think you went out to the woods to finish what I’d been forbidden from finishing–“

“No.” Stiles shakes his head in denial. His hands curl into fists and he advances on Peter, one halting step forward. He advances, but he stops because he doesn’t actually know what he means to do. He’s angry, but he’s not. What Peter is implying is impossible, but the idea of it shakes him more than any anger could. “You’re lying.” Because it’s not true, what Peter’s suggesting. Stiles would never. He _wouldn’t_.

Peter heaves a breath like he’s getting ready for a long-winded explanation, but fuck Peter’s explanation. There is no _explanation_ that can make anything right. “You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this now, and I’m telling you because it has become _relevant_ ,” Peter says. “Whatever happened, you were right in one respect: it isn’t over. Derek’s too bull-headed to stand still and _observe,_ but fortunately I am aware enough to make up for it. I don’t just visit the burnt shell of my home for a lovely walk down memory lane. There’s something sleeping in the woods, Stiles, and it’s starting to stir.”

Stiles laughs. It’s a harsh, forced sound. Short-lived and as unfunny as Stiles feels. “So what, you want me to waltz in there and– and tell whatever it is to please stop giving you the heebie jeebies?”

“No, I want you to _remember_ , so we can fix whatever you failed to fix,” Peter tells him patiently. “Having a physical body, of course, would make things easier, but–“

“No. _No_.” Stiles’ teeth clench with the effort to hold back a torrent of incoherent sounds. _Words, words, words._ “First you tell me it’s ‘cause you like me, then you tell me it’s for my own good, and now you’re trying to make it sound like it’s my job, like it’s my _duty_. As if I’m being stupid, because _the old me_ would’ve done it already, but you know what? If you _are_ telling the truth– and I don’t think you are– then the old me was a dick, and I’d rather disappear into nothing than go back to being like that.”

Peter turns his head like he might see Stiles more clearly if he looks with just one eye. He frowns. “Why can’t I have multiple reasons for wanting you back, alive and well? Are you going to fault me for being pragmatic?”

When Stiles doesn’t answer, Peter sighs. “You weren’t evil, Stiles.”

“How could I not be evil if I went out to hunt down some _kid?_ ” Stiles nearly shouts, his voice cracking at the end.

“Is it evil if it’s done for survival? If it’s done for justice? Or what if it’s done for love?”

“Survival? Justice? _Love?_ There is no excuse,” Stiles hisses. “Not for something like _this_.”

Peter just looks at Stiles like _he’s_ the crazy one, and Stiles can feel his anger bubbling back up like a bile in the blood of his not-body. He welcomes it. It’s better than the anxiety and uncertainty. It makes him feel stronger, rather than shaky and translucent like Peter had dissolved him with his words, acidic conjecture that threatened to leave Stiles without ground.

Stiles opens his mouth to give back as good as he’s gotten, but Peter beats him to it.

“The first thing I saw was the blackened wood of a charred ceiling,” Peter says, stunning Stiles. Peter stares silently at Stiles until Stiles’ mouth snaps shut, dry and empty. Peter’s voice is soft and distant when he speaks again. “It was the ceiling of a hall that had been gutted by fire, and everything was grey with ash. The walls were cracked and there were small holes where the fire had eaten through, just enough for light to cut into the dark of the hall. The sun was setting, I could tell by the colour and the angle of the light, by the way it blinded me and felt hot on my skin. Everything hurt and I could get no relief from the light or from the heat no matter how far I ran. I don’t know how long I spent trying to escape that burning light. The sun was setting, but it never went down. That hallway stretched on and on, full of cracks and holes, unending and going nowhere.” Peter’s voice has softened further, and Stiles strains to hear him speak. “After a time, it seemed the light began to burn into my very flesh. I looked down at myself and saw words branded on my skin. _You made me do this– I’ll never forgive you– stop hurting them stop stop stop I’ll make you– One day people will know what you did–“_

Stiles stares at Peter with growing horror, but Peter doesn’t seem to notice. Peter’s tone is gentle, like his words are soft things that must be carefully doled out, but he holds his body under opposite conditions, taut and tense. Peter’s shoulders are squared and his back is straight. Peter’s forearms rest like planks across the top of the seatback, and his fingernails gleam under the streetlight, long and triangular and so different from the blunt manicurist’s perfection of earlier.

“I wasn’t sure what was worse, the dark of the hall or the cutting light. I could neither touch the walls nor pass through them, so I ripped myself to pieces and fed myself through the cracks into that terrible heat, hoping that it would all just end.” Peter sighs. “But it didn’t, and I remade myself yet the words wouldn’t leave my skin. It hurt so much. The wounds I’d inflicted on my body never really healed. The hurt only eased when I carved those messages into their recipients, but there was no peace. There couldn’t be peace as long as there were senders out there, hurting for want of justice, for fear of the loved ones they’d left behind, and for anger over all the things they’d lost and been denied.”

Peter finally seems to draw back into himself, his body slumping slightly, but not for lack of energy. There’s that presence again, that strange intensity Peter likes to direct Stiles’ way. Peter reaches out for Stiles’ hand and Stiles lets him take it.

“I was a messenger, Stiles,” Peter says, cradling Stiles’ one hand between his two. Peter’s right hand is smooth and uncalloused. Peter’s left hand is leathery with the scar of an old burn. “We are birds of a feather.”

Peter sweeps his thumbs across Stiles’ knuckles, but the touch is just a touch. Peter tilts his head back to look up at Stiles, and his eyes shine with the reflection of the streetlight, but they are no longer the eyes of a predator. Peter’s face is caged with orange bars of light, and it’s enough to see the searching expression he’s forgotten to hide.

Peter may not be any more trustworthy than he was before, but it’s not Peter who has changed. It’s Stiles.

Stiles looks now and sees something differently in Peter. He isn’t foolish enough to assume that he will ever understand Peter, and he won’t ever forget his caution, but he realizes now that Peter really _doesn’t_ know anything – or at least, he doesn’t know _everything_. He’d accused Peter of not knowing anything before, but he hadn’t really believed his own words until now. Somehow, Peter had always given the impression of being omniscient, but here is proof that he is not. Peter may be knowledgeable – maybe still more knowledgeable than Stiles – but only with what his experience has shown him.

“You said it was the woods for you,” Peter whispers. “Tell me, how did you get out?”

Stiles thinks about the dark that nipped at his heels. He thinks about the cold and lonely moon, eaten away by the night in which it lived. Stiles closes his hand over Peter’s scarred palm. “Morning came.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm going to try to update at least once a week. I can't make any guarantees, and I can't designate a particular day of the week, but I'll try my best! Reviews are always loved.
> 
> Also, uh, this is still Derek/Stiles, but I'm going to add a Peter/Stiles tag because Peter got away from me, and he's got this one-sided sort of crush-obsession-thing going on...


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this is a bit late. I'm sick :(
> 
> Enjoy! As always, please review.

Things get better after Stiles’ talk with Peter. But only by a little bit, and only for a little while.

It’s not like Stiles and Peter become best buddies or anything, but they have a weird sort of understanding. Stiles knows now that while Peter might be missing a few marbles, he isn’t out to harm him and he truly intends to be helpful. Even if Peter still gives Stiles the creeps, it isn’t anything as intense as before. There is no fear, for one thing, and Peter’s strange magnetism seems to have dulled under the filter of Stiles’ new understanding. Peter doesn’t hold all the keys, he isn’t all knowing, and he isn’t any more mystical than Stiles is.

As for Peter, it’s clear that he still wants to believe that they are of a feather, but he acknowledges that while it might have once held true – and Stiles still doesn’t want to believe that – it no longer _is_ true. Stiles is Stiles, but different. Whatever drove him to the sorts of choices that Peter says he made, he doesn’t remember, and he doesn’t intend to ever be that person again.

It breaks something in him, to think he might have been the kind of person to consider murder as a first resort. Even if he could believe that he was capable of such things, he doesn’t know how it could’ve happened. Not with a father like his father, and not with friends like McCall. It makes him wonder if they really mourn him, or if they only mourn an illusion of him, a good-natured mask that he never let them look behind. He doubts that they know about the things he did or the things he was capable of doing, and a selfish part of him hopes that they never know, even if the knowledge could release them from the last of their grief.

Really, the benefit of straightening things out with Peter is that Stiles’ routine gets a healthier twist. He still spends most of his time watching over his father, but he takes breaks when he needs to. Whenever the glass in his vicinity starts to vibrate with his stress or whenever he feels like he’s going to pop a vein, he seeks out the pack – the Hale pack. His old pack.

Sometimes Peter is at the housing complex and sometimes he isn’t. When he’s there, Stiles will inevitably be drawn into a conversation with him. Peter is willing to talk to Stiles whether the pack is there to feel uncomfortable about him apparently talking to himself or not, and whether Stiles is willing to reply or not. Stiles might not want to answer, but he always does when it becomes too ridiculous to watch the pack react with varying levels of confusion and aggression. Probably, the only thing that saves the housing complex from a blood bath is that Peter never addresses him by name. It’s for the best, and Stiles isn’t masochistic enough to torture himself with false hope. The pack would never believe that Peter is _actually talking_ to Stiles.

To be honest, the times when he pops into the housing complex and Peter _isn’t_ there are his favourite. Stiles doesn’t know where Peter goes, and the pack doesn’t say much about it, unconcerned as long as Peter isn’t out causing trouble. From what Stiles is able to gather, it sounds like Peter is some sort of travelling antiques specialist. The job has the benefit of keeping the pack informed on supernatural activity outside their territory at the same time it provides actual cash. 

There’s always someone home, but who’s there depends on the time of day. The mornings will always have Isaac and Derek, as only three people have permanent residence in the unit. Sometimes other pack members, meaning Boyd and Erica, will sleepover, but that happens rarely. On those nights when it’s just Boyd and Erica, Stiles makes sure to leave quickly, because he’s a fast learner and couple’s-alone-time is not something he needs to hear or witness more than once, thanks.

The puppies – as Stiles has come to call them – are usually out during the day, either attending the local college or working. Except for Isaac who is a caretaker in the cemetery and can have shifts ranging from the ass crack of dawn to the dead of night, their schedules are pretty stable. Boyd works part-time at a bakery and Erica works weekends at a mechanic’s shop. This leaves Isaac constantly bemoaning the state the couple leave the house in, Boyd always transferring flour from his shirt to the sofa, and Erica always leaving black fingerprints on the walls and furniture. The usual reaction to Isaac’s complaints is Erica painting her toenails with her feet propped on the den’s coffee table and Boyd’s hand resting on her back as he channel surfs.

Isaac seems to be the housekeeper against his will, but despite Boyd and Erica’s smug smiles each time Isaac tries to tell them off from making more messes, there’s no real harm done. Whenever Boyd drops by the unit with leftovers from the bakery, Isaac gets first pick, and whenever his shitty station wagon breaks down, Erica helps him get it fixed within the day.

Derek is actually the one who spends the most time at home. Stiles still isn’t sure what he does for a living, but maybe the uncertainty comes from Derek not having any one job. He’s seen Derek reading the papers, watching the news, and tapping away on a laptop, apparently playing the stock market. He’s seen Derek in the alley behind the housing complex with a tool belt, sawing and sanding until a few hunks of wood turned into a beautifully crafted hope chest which he entrusted a local store to sell. He’s seen Derek pick up books from the library to take home, but not to read. Derek takes these old and battered books home and repairs them. Sometimes he replaces the hardcover, sometimes he redoes the stitching between worn pages, but always he works with surprising skill, and Stiles has never seen him accept payment for these book doctoring services. 

He’s also followed Derek to the burnt house – the old Hale house – and seen Derek tending to a tiny vegetable patch behind the house, and even a secret cache of potted plants hidden in one of the rooms on the second story, a room where the ceiling had fallen away to expose the sky. However, Derek doesn’t seem to have much skill with gardening. Rather than a green thumb, it can be said that he has a black thumb, and not because of the soil that stains the pads of his fingers. The plants that Derek apparently tried to grow from seeds never flowered, and the plants that he bought as sprouts to be tended into adulthood are shrivelled.

Stiles doesn’t really understand why Derek has a garden, but Derek persists despite his amateur hands. It’s strangely isolating in a way that his other hobbies aren’t. While Derek seems to appreciate solitude, he’s never adverse to the puppies approaching him, yet the puppies seem to know not to disturb him when he’s elbows-deep in the garden. Derek weeds and prunes and jerks his head up when he hears the snap of twigs in the woods. Derek waters and fertilizes and twists around when he sees a flash of red feathers in the trees, a bird taking flight.    

While Derek’s other ventures leave him with a quiet sense of accomplishment that is apparent by the lack of tension in his broad shoulders, Derek’s gardening failures seem to weigh heavily on him. Derek always looks down at his struggling plants with a blank face that gives away nothing, but it leaves Stiles with the urge to pat him on the back and reassure him that, hey, the tomato plant produced _two_ tomatoes, and that’s pretty good even if it they’re the size and colour of peas.

“Tomatoes need a lot of sunlight,” Stiles tells Derek, even though he knows Derek can’t hear him. “You should try growing them somewhere new. Somewhere sunnier.”

Derek doesn’t, of course. What Derek does is leave the vegetable patch to wither and die as autumn really starts to set in. There’s a distinct red tint creeping out of the woods, and in some places there is a spreading carpet of fallen leaves.

Derek harvests some of the plants from the vegetable patch, mostly the leaves and roots of some shrivelled herbs which he hangs from the burnt rafters of the house to dry. He moves the potted plants into the attic of the housing unit, and it’s clear that he’s reached the end of the line – whatever line that may be. There’s a surprisingly large skylight in the attic, but it’s not enough for any plant to survive by. Derek doesn’t intend to keep the plants for next year. The attic is a place of storage, where people put things they don’t plan on looking at often; where people put things that are left to be forgotten.

It would’ve been a sad thing to see, whether Derek had put away his tool belt or his book binding kit or something else he’s talented with, but it’s somehow worse seeing the plants wither uncared for in the attic. Tools will last a long time untouched. Potted plants will not. Maybe it’s sadder because of this time limit, like if Derek acts soon, he might still succeed, his plants might still grow. Maybe, if he just held on.

It’s a nice thought, but this type of thinking is destructive in reality.

Agent Pine steps into the Sheriff Station on a Monday morning, interrupting the sleepy chatter of the deputies discussing their weekends. He doesn’t pause at the front desk. He shows himself into the Sheriff’s office where the Sheriff is already waiting, alerted by the hush that fell on his colleagues.

“You’re on suspension,” Agent Pine says without preamble.

The Sheriff stiffens in his chair. “What?”

Stiles jolts away from the wall he’d been leaning against.

“You heard me, and you know why,” Agent Pine says, cold and efficient as ever, but there’s a slight edge to his voice that Stiles doesn’t remember from the last time he was in the office.

“I heard you, but I think you should clarify your reasoning,” the Sheriff says calmly.

“You were warned to stay off the case. You did not stay _off the case_.” Agent Pine stalks right up to the Sheriff’s desk and lays his palms on the edge of the wood. “I let it slide when you were only looking at past incidents with Lawson’s group, but then you had to go digging into the present,” Agent Pine says, only a hairsbreadth of professionalism away from spitting. “I’m not an idiot, even if you and Wellesley take me for one.”

The Sheriff’s expression doesn’t give away his thoughts, but his hesitation does. “Agent Wellesley–”

“Is in deeper shit than you. He’s got farther to fall and he should’ve remembered that. He shouldn’t have given you anything, and you shouldn’t have accepted.” Agent Pine doesn’t mention the blame that should fall on his own shoulders for letting any of it happen in the first place, but it’s clearly not because he’s completely blind of his hypocrisy. Even Stiles can see that much of Agent Pine’s aggravation stems from self-flagellation. Still, that doesn’t change Stiles’ need to slap Agent Pine’s hands off of his father’s desk.

Stiles tries to do just that, but his hands pass harmlessly through Agent Pine’s. The movement doesn’t even rustle any papers on the desk, and for the hundredth time, Stiles curses his inability to control his stupid ghostly telekinetic powers. He would love to shove Agent Pine onto his ass with nothing but the power of his mind.

The Sheriff stares down at the half finished paperwork on his desk. “I assume my suspension is indefinite,” he says, and his tone is steady in a way that tells Stiles he’s been expecting this for some time. He’s either a realist or a badass for knowing this was coming, doing what he wanted anyway, and now rolling with the punches like he can’t even be bothered that he won’t be getting a lunch-break donut. The Sheriff starts shuffling his papers into a neat pile, unhurried by the man glaring angrily at him over the desk.

“You assume correctly. You’re on suspension as of now, and you’re going to hand everything over to me. _Now_ ,” Agent Pine stresses the last word. The Sheriff hasn’t got a grace period to photocopy files or squirrel things away this time.

The Sheriff nods in understanding and gets to his feet. His posture is stiff in a way that speaks of quiet anger, the type that has no particular focus but just _is_. He’s not happy, but he’s not stupid enough to throw a tantrum or try to deny what’s already been laid bare. With a minimum of words, the Sheriff somehow gets Agent Pine to follow him back home, each in their own car like neither is willing to give up that last modicum of control, even if it’s over something as silly as who’s driving.

The Sheriff takes the cruiser even though he’ll have to return it later, and Stiles rides shotgun. Agent Pine follows in his nondescript black car. The Sheriff drives the scenic route at exactly the speed limit with Agent Pine tailing him. He makes a full stop at every stop sign and takes extra time to check and double check all the proper angles at every opportunity. The passive aggressive behaviour isn’t subtle and Stiles spitefully flips Agent Pine the bird, grinning at the scowling figure of Agent Pine in the rear view mirror.

When they get to the house and Agent Pine finally sees the Sheriff’s study, his scowl only deepens. The room is an explosion of information, organized in a way that’s probably indecipherable to someone who wasn’t there to witness the progress of its growth. It’s undeniably first rate detective work that would be most beneficial if left untouched, but Agent Pine is frustrated beyond reason. While he might normally be a relatively cool and unaffected guy, it seems the betrayal of his partner has wedged a stick the size of Alaska up his ass. He doesn’t even bother to take a snapshot of how everything looks pinned together on the wall. He gets right to work tearing it down and stowing heaps of papers into unorganized boxes.

“Hey asshole, you’re just making this harder for yourself,” Stiles yells over the rustle of his father’s hard work getting boxed like spring cleaning. Stiles perches unhelpfully on the edge of an office chair while the Sheriff slowly collects thumbtacks into a little plastic dish.

Stiles tries to spin in the office chair, but ends up only kicking his legs awkwardly through the backrest. He settles back into a proper sitting position and leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees.  

They work quickly and without talking. Although Agent Pine had seemed surprised when he first walked into the study, he came prepared with several bankers’ boxes. Even if Stiles doesn’t like the guy, and even if the guy is being a proud, hypocritical dick, Stiles has to admit that Agent Pine isn’t an agent for no reason. He’s efficient, and he didn’t underestimate the amount of work the Sheriff put into his personal project.

But he’s still a dick.

“A second suspension doesn’t look good, Mr Stilinski,” Agent Pine says, standing on the threshold after the last bankers’ box has been loaded in his car; he intentionally doesn’t use the title of ‘Sheriff’. “Both times on account of your son,” he needlessly adds.

The Sheriff’s eyes narrow. “You don’t know half of what I’d go through for my son.” The Sheriff slams the door on Agent Pine’s face, nearly clipping the agent’s toes off.

The Sheriff breathes heavily. Without the need for any pretence, his anger finally makes itself known. More than ever, Stiles wishes he could wilfully destroy things, namely Agent Pine’s stupid face, though blowing up his car engine would do just as well.

It’s mostly unfounded anger on Stiles’ part, though, because while he hates Agent Pine for his attitude and for the unnecessary way he treated his father, he’s not actually mad about what happened. He’s _glad_ Agent Pine stepped in. Agent Pine is able to stop the Sheriff where Stiles can’t. It’s not the nicest or easiest solution, but it’s something that had to be done, like ripping the band-aid off all in one go. The Sheriff needs to stop searching for something he won’t find, and left with an empty study maybe he will finally see that.

As upsetting as it is, everything has its time. Whether it’s plants that just won’t grow, or cases that just won’t close, there is a point at which every rope ends. Derek cut the rope himself, and Stiles never really had one to hold. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t remember what it’s like to cling on for dear life that he gets lulled into a false sense of security. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t remember how hard it is to let go when you’ve already been holding on for so long. Maybe it’s because he’s as wilfully blind as Agent Pine. Whatever it is, he forgets to think about what might happen with his father’s rope.

Stiles is reassured when the Sheriff doesn’t conclude the night by breaking out a bottle of Jack. The Sheriff neither breaks things nor breaks down. The Sheriff isn’t really the sheriff anymore, but something about his bearing won’t let Stiles forget that his father is practically his job. It worries him a little, but the Sheriff doesn’t start jotting things from memory onto a notepad, and he doesn’t load up his gun to go shoot Agent Pine in the foot, so that’s something.

The Sheriff actually spends his time productively, tidying up the yard and mowing the lawn for the first time in weeks. He returns the cruiser to the station and pulls the tarp off of the blue Jeep parked in the garage. He scans the classifieds and does busywork in between long and boring phone calls. With no work to fill his evenings, he actually gets into bed early, although he still spends hours lying awake. He also ignores calls from Mrs McCall about his health and mental well-being, but that’s par for the course. It’s a unique blend of quiet stress that has Stiles leaving his father alone for a few hours at a time, assured enough that his father isn’t going to drown himself in alcohol, but also driven away by a tinge of guilt and the need to cool down.

On the fourth night after Agent Pine confiscated the materials in the study, Stiles leaves his father lying awake in bed to visit the Hale Pack. He only drops in on the pack for a short while, eager to ease his heart with their petty arguments and easy smiles. When he gets back to the house, the garage is empty and his father is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if it's just my screen, but my End Notes section seems to be haunted by a past End Note from a different chapter. Does anyone know how to make it go away? It's like the ghost of past difficulties which I'd really like to exorcise.


	15. Chapter 15

It probably wouldn’t have mattered whether they found the Sheriff within the first hour or within the second night, but Stiles still blames himself for not seeing the obvious sooner.

Nobody notices the Sheriff’s absence. Probably because the Sheriff isn’t officially the sheriff anymore. The paperwork is all in order and the higher ups have informed everyone at the Sheriff Station of the suspension. The Sheriff is somewhat of a recluse when he isn’t working, anyway. Not even Mrs McCall can tell that her phone calls remain unanswered because there’s no one there to pick up the phone, rather than because they’re being purposely ignored.

Stiles spends the first night waiting in the house for the Sheriff to return. At first, he thinks that maybe the Sheriff went out to grab some late night snacks from the convenience store. When a couple hours pass with no Jeep in sight, Stiles thinks that maybe the Sheriff has gone out for a drive. After another few hours, he thinks that maybe it’s just a very relaxing, very long drive.

There are no lights left on in the house and the darkness is suffocating, but that doesn’t keep Stiles from curling over the back of the living room sofa, waiting. He hugs his knees to his chest and digs his fingers into the sofa back. He presses his unfeeling nose to the cold glass of the window. He watches the driveway with unblinking eyes, willing the Jeep to appear with his father safe and sound.

The sun rises and his father doesn’t return. When Stiles finally peels himself away from the window, there is a bloom of frosted glass where there wasn’t before, like Stiles’ breath had abraded the surface, fogging it with capillaries of fine cracks.

Stiles blips to the Sheriff Station and the convenience store and the grocer. He checks the park and the high school and the library. He checks every address that his father circled in the Classifieds, hoping that maybe his father just went out midnight job-hunting or something. He doesn’t find his father or the Jeep anywhere he looks. Not at the McCall’s house, not around the Preserve, and not at the hospital.

He returns to the house to search for clues, but he doesn’t even know what he’s looking for. The fridge is as empty as ever and the study remains as blank as the day Agent Pine stripped it bare, not even a week ago. None of his father’s clothes seem to be missing and his suitcase is still tucked under the bed, so he doesn’t mean to be gone for long, but that doesn’t lessen Stiles’ worry. If anything, that makes it worse.

He can’t help but imagine his father caught in some sort of accident. Maybe the Jeep skidded off the road somewhere. Maybe he was waylaid on the highway by bandits. Maybe he impulsively decided to become a hermit and just abandoned everything. They’re stupid theories, and none of them make him feel better. Nothing but knowing where the Sheriff really _is_ will relieve the noose tightening slowly around his neck, and Stiles hates himself a little more with every passing minute.

This is what he put his father through for nearly two years.

He forces himself to give it twenty-four hours. He wants to believe that he’s just overreacting. His father is a grown man. He knows how to handle himself and give any bad guys a smack down that their descendents will feel. There’s no reason for the awful twist in Stiles’ gut, the anxiety that shouldn’t be so tangible. There is no evidence of a home invasion or a kidnapping. Everything indicates his father simply got up and left, but Stiles’ can’t ease the feeling that something is wrong. He’s missed something and he doesn’t know what.

By the time the sun sets on the beginning of the second night, Stiles is taut and pulled thin as a wire. He’s had enough of waiting around. He goes to the only person who can help him.

“Peter!” Stiles yells as soon as he blips into the den of the housing unit. “Peter!”

The yelling proves unnecessary when Peter’s head appears from around the door frame leading into the kitchen. There’s no one else in the den, and judging by Peter’s surprised use of his name, there’s no one in the unit at all. “What happened?” Peter asks, and Stiles is grateful that Peter is direct for once.

“My dad, he’s gone– he’s missing– I don’t know– but he’s gone and, and,” Stiles bites down on his words. He paces in a tight circle around the coffee table and grips angrily at the air, trying to calm himself enough to speak coherently and stop wasting more time than he already has. “My dad’s gone. Last night, he was in bed and now he’s just– _gone_ – and I don’t know where he went and I know something’s wrong. I _know it_. I just don’t know where he’d go– he didn’t even pack anything so he should’ve been back already, and– _fuck_ –“

“Stiles,” Peter cuts in and stops Stiles in his tracks. Stiles doesn’t know when Peter left the kitchen and entered the den, but now he stands in Stiles’ path, interrupting his panicked circuit. He reaches a hand up like he wants to grip Stiles’ chin and force eye contact, but he stops when Stiles flinches back. Peter lets his hand drop.

“Stiles,” Peter says again. “We’ll look for him.” He doesn’t tell Stiles to calm down or stop worrying, and he doesn’t make any promises. There’s no comfort in Peter’s tone, but somehow it’s what Stiles needs.

Peter takes the beat up Ford pick-up – the only car left in the lot – from behind the housing complex. It’s not the ride Stiles would expect Peter to drive, but he’s not entirely sure whether the pack owns cars individually or as a group.

Peter pulls out onto the street and starts driving to Stiles’ house with Stiles riding shotgun. It feels like they crawl at a snail’s pace even though he knows they’re actually toeing the speed limit on the fastest route possible. It’s irritating that a werewolf still has to drive a car, although that’s unfair to Peter. Being used to the convenience of teleportation, everything else is just too fucking slow for Stiles.

When they finally park by the curb outside Stiles’ house, Stiles is beyond impatient. He’s practically breathing down the back of Peter’s neck as Peter steps out of the car and towards the house. He doesn’t go inside, and for a moment Stiles wonders if Peter wants permission to kick down the door or something, but Peter doesn’t even walk that far. Peter stops in the middle of the driveway and tilts his face up, sniffing daintily in a way that Stiles wouldn’t notice if he wasn’t expecting it.

“Can you find him?” Stiles asks, bouncing from foot to foot beside Peter, silently urging him to hurry the fuck up. It’s not like there’s a clock counting down somewhere, except there totally is – in Stiles’ mind.

“Did he take the Jeep?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, going still with anticipation. “So you have his scent?”

“No, but I can smell old curly fries,” Peter says. He wrinkles his nose and gives Stiles a sidelong glance, picking up on his shortening temper.

Stiles doesn’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but before he can say anything, Peter drops into a crouch. Somewhere in that fluid movement, Peter shifts from a well dressed man into a well dressed, deformed werewolf beast.

Stiles yelps and stumbles back. He was kind of expecting something furrier or more wolf-like, and while there is an explosion of sideburns, the most startling change is the distortion of the face. Stiles doesn’t know if this is normal for werewolves, but it sure ain’t pretty. Also, it doesn’t actually change who Peter is, and Stiles is reminded of this when Peter glances up. His eyes glow a bright unnatural blue, but they’re as chilling and teasing as usual.

“Keep up,” Peter says, the words slightly garbled around a set of glistening canines. Then he’s off.

Peter’s four-legged run looks ridiculous, and Stiles considers being an ass about it later, but it’s not as funny when he finds that it actually _is_ difficult to keep up. He can’t exhaust himself running and he’s definitely lighter on his feet than he would be with a physical body, but it’s a strangely breathless exercise trying to keep pace with a werewolf. He feels slow, watching Peter’s legs kicking out behind him like he’s swimming through the air.

Somehow, Stiles starts to lag. He tries to put on a burst of speed, but accidentally blips forward instead. He didn’t know he could blip while moving, but this turns out to be a convenient solution to the problem of keeping pace. However, Stiles’ triumphant crow soon turns into choked back groans.

Jumping forward in space by way of some unknown grey area in between dimensions or whatever is not an enjoyable thing to do. Every jump feels like he’s being jerked forward by a hook in his chest. His vision greys in and out, and he feels as nauseous as it’s possible to feel without a body. It’s like channel surfing through snow, but not just watching it; being _in it_. Images flicker too fast for him to grasp more than a suggestion of. He can barely tell where he’s going and he tries to avoid jumping forward when possible, but Peter only seems to get faster and faster, and the recovery time between jumps becomes longer and longer.

He focuses on following the dark shadow of Peter’s body, and that’s pretty much the limit of his awareness. He thinks he can hear the pop and crackle of a few streetlights, but he can’t be sure. This probably isn’t good for him, but he can’t bring himself to tell Peter to slow down. If anything, he wants Peter to go _faster_.

He doesn’t know how long they run for. When Peter finally stops, Stiles blips past him by a few feet and is ready to go again before he realizes that Peter is no longer in front of him. He manages not to collapse, but it’s a near thing. He feels weak and insubstantial, more like the ghost or spirit or whatever he’s supposed to be than ever before. Stiles holds his hands out to examine them and he swears the outlines of his fingers aren’t blurry because of his unfocused vision.

“Is ‘e here?” Stiles slurs out. His tongue feels like a water balloon. He can’t even tell where ‘here’ is, everything indistinct and misty to his eye. If Peter notices anything wrong with Stiles, he doesn’t comment on it.

“No, but the Jeep is,” Peter says.

Stiles turns around to follow Peter’s line of sight. They’re standing in what appears to be a small parking lot. There is only one vehicle parked, and Stiles can tell by the colour that the large, rectangular blob he is looking at is indeed the Jeep.

“Where are we even?” Stiles grumbles, rubbing his hands over his eyes. He jerks his hand away when the heel of his palm sinks through his eye socket, seeming to phase through his cornea or something.

He’s never fucking phased through himself before.

Stiles shudders and wonders if he can vomit after all, but his vision settles after a few more blinks, meaning he’s capable of answering his own question.

They’re in the parking lot next to a church and a cemetery. The Beacon Hills Cemetery.

“My dad... is in the cemetery.”

“No,” Peter says, “but Isaac is.”

By now, Peter has shifted back to his human form. He dusts off his hands, and together they pass through the gates of the cemetery.

A few streetlights edge the parking lot, and there are lamp posts dotting the cemetery, but they are few and far between. The lamp posts are dim, and a thick cloud cover blocks out any specks of light the night sky could offer. Headstones are laid in neat rows like granite teeth. Most are short and rectangular, but the occasional spire or angel stands sentinel, casting long shadows that seem to twitch with every flicker of the lamp posts’ lights.

It doesn’t help that the lamp posts seem aggravated by Stiles’ presence, dimming the closer he gets. Stiles purposely lags, watching Peter make his way to a corner of the cemetery illuminated with a rigging of bright, fluorescent lights.   

Isaac is at the far end of the cemetery under these lights. Isaac must have known they – or, well, Peter – was nearby as soon as they were through the gate. Isaac watches Peter approach with a wary eye, turning off the small excavator he was using to dig a grave before hopping out to meet Peter.

“What are you doing here?” Isaac asks cautiously, running up to Peter. He doesn’t get too close, though, and it occurs to Stiles that it must be pretty freaking spooky for Isaac, the lights flickering for no apparent reason as Peter nears.

Peter doesn’t stop walking, instead making a turn with Isaac and Stiles trailing behind. “I’m following a scent.”

“Whose?”

Peter doesn’t answer, instead pausing at a simple headstone that doesn’t seem remarkably different from any of the others until Stiles reads the name.

Urszula Stilinski.

Isaac frowns and his nostrils flare. “The Sheriff? You’re tracking the Sheriff?”

Again, Peter doesn’t respond. He turns slowly on the spot, and then keeps walking. Stiles and Isaac follow. Isaac talks as they walk, his concern making him forget his fear of Peter. “Why are you tracking the Sheriff? I haven’t seen him for a while, and he definitely wasn’t here today. The trail would be stronger, right? Is– is something wrong?”

“The Sheriff is missing,” Peter finally says. “The next time you train, focus on mastering your sense of smell. I know you cut through the woods to meet Derek for a ride home, but the Jeep is parked just outside the cemetery gates. Even without the Jeep, you should’ve smelled something.”

Isaac’s eyes are wide with shock. “The Sheriff–”

Peter stops suddenly and Isaac bounces off his back.

They are at the boundary between the cemetery and the woods. Somehow, it looks different now that they are so close. It should be easier to differentiate the shapes of leaves and branches at this distance, but it’s not.

“Why’d you stop? The trail keeps going, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Peter says quietly, “but that doesn’t mean I should follow it.”

Peter steps back and Stiles feels Peter’s hand reaching out to grab his wrist. Peter probably intends to restrain Stiles, to keep him from dashing off, but it’s unnecessary. Stiles barely feels Peter’s hand as it phases through him without touching.

Stiles feels frozen. He feels as faint as smoke from a banked fire. He can hear the thrum of electricity running in weaker and weaker spurts through the filaments of old light bulbs. He registers Isaac’s voice nervously pressing Peter for answers. The wind blows at Stiles’ back, seeming to smooth shadows into the night.

Before him, the dark yawns open, a gaping mouth that inhales, inhales, inhales. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're still not near the end. As always, reviews are much loved :)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I missed a week! It's been busy, but here's a new chapter :)

The day that Stiles hit 4’8” is the day that Dad was hit by a car.

Dad had been on the shoulder, writing a ticket for a speeding driver when he was hit by another driver who’d fallen asleep at the wheel.

That morning, Stiles had woken up and run to the doorjamb with the pencil marks that track his height. It was part of his morning ritual, a habit that came from watching everyone else hit their growth spurt while he remained as shrimpy as ever. He balanced a book on his head to line up the pencil, scratched a mark on the wall, and turned around to see that – at long last – a faint line had appeared half an inch above the thick black band that he’d been retracing for months. He leapt down the stairs and followed the smell of pancakes to the kitchen so he could tell Mom the awesome news.

The pancakes hadn’t smelt quite right, but it wasn’t until he saw Mom’s face that he realized they were burning. Mom had stood leaning against the counter, the phone clutched tightly to her chest, and her eyes staring vacantly into the middle distance.

“Mom?” Stiles said, timid and unsure. Mom seemed to snap back to herself at the sound of his voice. Her face shuttered so that only the slightest worry showed in the creases between her eyebrows. She put down the phone, slid the pan off of the element, and turned the stove off with steady hands. She walked to Stiles where he stood frozen in the doorway, knelt down, and told him what had happened. Then she told him that it would be all right, that Dad was okay, and that they were going to visit the hospital now, so Stiles had to put on something warmer than his Batman pajamas. She pulled him into a tight hug and Stiles returned it, burying his face in her shoulder and inhaling the scent of burnt pancakes, soft cotton, and something clean and stinging that he couldn’t identify.

They were out the door in two minutes. Stiles had changed into yesterday’s jeans and pulled a hoodie over his pajama top. The large hoodie pocket came in handy for holding the granola bar Mom gave him. She meant for it to serve as breakfast, but it was put to better use as stress relief. Stiles twisted and tugged and mashed the granola bar in its wrapper, keeping his wringing hands hidden in his pocket, just as Mom kept her thoughts secret behind her blanched face.

Stiles had never been to a hospital before. At least, not since he was a baby. None of the kids at school believed him when he told them that, and he couldn’t blame them. He was clumsy. He got hurt a lot. Only, he was never hurt so badly that he’d had to go to the hospital. Scrapes and bruises and bloody noses, that was all. Every time Stiles pulled a stunt that would’ve broken a different kid’s bones, Dad would shake his head, snort fondly, and tell him that he was lucky. Mom would smile with that worried crease between her eyebrows and tell him that he was strong.

Stiles hadn’t felt very strong following Mom through a maze of sterile hallways, and waiting in an uncomfortable chair. The nurses were nice, many of them waving at Mom, but it felt overbearing to Stiles. He didn’t get what their problem was. So, Dad got hurt. He wasn’t dead. They said it was just a broken arm and a concussion. There was no reason for the way the nurses treated Mom like glass. There was no reason for the pinched and pitying smiles they sent Stiles’ way.

When they were finally allowed into Dad’s room, Dad was propped against the headboard of his hospital bed. He was awake though he looked tired, and his right arm was encased in fresh plaster. There were bruises on one side of his face, and a flash of white bandages peeking out from the collar of his hospital gown. Dad smiled apologetically when he saw them, and Stiles and Mom wasted no time getting to his bedside.

They fussed and scolded and worried over Dad until he fell asleep. Mom sat on the edge of the mattress holding Dad’s hand and tracing circles into his skin with her thumb. Stiles sat on the opposite side, doodling on Dad’s cast with markers that one of the nurses had given him.

_Dad, be safe,_ Stiles wrote. Then he drew a fireball on the plaster that covered the palm of Dad’s hand. Part way through the _Stiles Contract_ he was meticulously writing on Dad’s forearm, Mom hiccupped. Stiles looked up at the sound.

Mom was reading what Stiles had written so far and her lips were pulled into a pained smile. Her face was red like she’d been choking, and every few seconds another hiccup would escape. She laughed, but it was a self-deprecating sound.

“You know, we’re the ones that are supposed to be taking care of you,” she said.

Stiles glanced down at the contract.

_3.b. I will listen to Stiles’ advice, because Stiles is right and I’m too old for the nightshift._

Stiles shrugged. “I can take care of you too,” he said.

Stiles returned to writing the contract until Mom laid a hand over his. She squeezed his hand and Stiles heard the clink of rings as she squeezed Dad’s hand too. “You shouldn’t have to,” she said.

She looked very old and worn in that moment. Her hair seemed very thin under the fluorescent lights. There were shadows under her eyes and in her cheeks. Her skin felt dry and papery, the bones of her hand brittle and bird-like. The flush had faded from her face and her breathing was even and soft. They were hunched close together over Dad, but Stiles could barely pick up the scent of burnt pancakes over the stronger sting of antiseptic and hospital and sickness.

“I’ll watch over you,” she promised.

It was months before Stiles learned what she meant. It was even longer before Stiles learned that she lied.

After Dad’s accident, Stiles had many opportunities to familiarize himself with the hospital. Stiles remembers that much now. That was all for Mom, but he’s here again, now, for Dad.

According to Peter, they’d stood outside the woods all night. Peter had been unwilling to go in, and apparently Stiles had been really out of it. Untouchable. Barely visible. Barely there.  

Isaac had gone in with Derek to find Dad, and they had searched all night. It wasn’t until morning that they found him, lying in the middle of a clearing, seemingly asleep on a barren patch of earth. There were no visible injuries, but he wouldn’t wake up no matter how hard they shook him or how loudly they called his name.

Stiles might not have been there in the woods, but he’d been there the moment Isaac and Derek exited with Dad draped over their shoulders, cold, pale, and unresponsive. Stiles was there as they sped to the hospital, and he was there when doctors and nurses rushed Dad inside. He was there as they ran test after test, and as they came to the puzzling conclusion that there was _nothing wrong_. But there was; there is. Dad won’t wake up.

Stiles is here, now, hours or days or weeks after Dad was first laid upon a hospital bed. They are alone until a nurse and a young man slip past the privacy curtain.

“He hasn’t woken up once, Scott. It’s been days. There’s no reason for...” Ms McCall looks worriedly to Scott. “It’s... it’s because of something _weird_ , isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Scott says. His brow scrunches with concern. “I didn’t even know he was missing. I didn’t even– I mean, everything’s been so quiet since...“ Scott’s throat bobs as he swallows thickly. “You said that Derek brought him in.”

“Yeah, he did. Apparently, he said he was picking Isaac up from the graveyard and they found John in the woods... You don’t think that _Derek_ –”

“No.” Scott shakes his head. “He wouldn’t. Not the Sheriff, not Stiles’ dad–”

“Then what–”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him since. Since...” Scott trails off. His eyes blink rapidly and his lips tighten.

Ms McCall positions herself in front of her son. She holds his face between her hands and looks him in the eye. “I think you need to talk to him now.”

“Yeah.” Scott nods seriously, the action cradled by his mother’s hands. “I know, but he hasn’t answered his phone. I don’t even know if it’s still his number, and he isn’t at the Hale house. I checked.”

“And no one’s seen him?”

“His pack, probably, but they’re avoiding me.” Scott wrenches away. He spins on his heel and paces restlessly within the boundaries of the curtain. “They have no right. I know we don’t really talk anymore, but this is _Stiles’ dad_ , and they thought it would be okay to let us find out through freaking _gossip?_ ”

Ms McCall watches her son. Her hands have fallen to her sides where they grip at the legs of her scrubs. It looks like a nervous habit, the way her fingertips alternate between digging into the pant leg and smoothing the fabric. It’s an action that belies the determined set of her jaw. “You think it’s them, don’t you? You think it’s whoever took Stiles. You think they did this.”

“I checked the woods. There’s like this weird, I don’t know, but something just – I can feel it. It feels just like when Stiles,” Scott stops at the foot of the bed, his back turned to his mother. “I’m going to kill them.”

“Scott,” Ms McCall says gently. She repeats his name until he turns slowly to face her.

“Stiles is gone because of them, Mom.” Scott’s voice is strained and suddenly deep. His eyes are squeezed shut. His jaw is tightly clenched and his words are formed with the barest twitch of his lips, like everything he’s feeling will spill out of him if he opens his mouth too wide. His hands are balled into fists at his sides, shaking with a rage that makes the veins rise under his skin, and Stiles swears he can see a trickle of blood lining the creases between his fingers. “Stiles is _gone_ and I don’t even know what _happened_ –”

“And you’re not going to kill them–”

Scott actually fucking _snarls_.

“–because I’m going to kill them.”

“What?” Scott’s voice cracks like he’s trapped in puberty. Ms McCall’s words have the effect of a slap to the face. Scott’s eyes are round with shock and his mouth hangs open, uncomprehending.

Ms McCall nods, her eyes wide and serious. “I’m going to kill them if John doesn’t get to them first.” She turns to lean over the Sheriff’s bed. “You hear that, John? If you don’t wake up soon, there’ll be none left for you.”

“But. But,” Scott sputters, “but you’re a _nurse_.” Like that’s the most important thing. Stiles rolls his eyes at the same time Ms McCall does.

“I’m a mother,” she says, matter of fact. “And even if Stiles never thought of me that way,” Ms McCall takes a steadying breath, the air shuddering in and then out, “I never had just one son, and I am a _mother_.”

Scott is speechless and Stiles... Stiles is too.

Ms McCall stands at the Sheriff’s bedside, one hand resting carefully on the mattress by the Sheriff’s shoulder. The other hand darts up to wipe at her damp eyes before returning to perch on her hip. Her face turns briefly towards the ceiling like she’s trying to will the wetness from her eyes before she fixes them on Scott. Her expression is a mess of restrained emotion, grief and protective fury and a plea for Scott to listen to her. “Scott, I’m asking you to sit this one out. I know you’re good at playing hero, but, God... You weren’t there, and I understand that it was too difficult for you to come, but I had to watch John pick out an urn, and then I had to watch you...” She shakes her head as if to clear the images from her mind. “You can’t.”

“Mom–”

“Let me finish, sweetie,” Ms McCall says, holding a finger out to quiet Scott. “You kids are going to let the grown-ups take care of this–”

“We’re not–”

“I don’t care if you’re nineteen, twenty, or even fifty years old. You’re my child, and Allison is Chris’ child, and _no one_ should ever have to lose their _child_. That’s a risk I won’t take, so you and your friends are going to keep going to school. You’re going to study hard and party hard– but not too hard– and we’ll hold the fort. We’ll take care of it.” Ms McCall stares intently at her son, nodding her head as if willing Scott to nod with her. “If those fuckers think they can swan back into town, mess with the Sheriff, and just waltz their way out, they have another thing coming for them.”

“Mom–”

“Promise me, Scott, that you and your friends will stay out of this.”

Ms McCall’s lips tremble as she waits for Scott to reply, but Scott doesn’t say anything. He remains standing at the foot of the Sheriff’s hospital bed, his hands braced on the footboard and his head bowed but unmoving.

They remain frozen like that, the minutes dragging on until Scott’s phone vibrates in his pocket. Scott doesn’t pull it out to check the text, but he releases the footboard, leaving a red smear behind. He shuffles over to the curtain, his head still bowed. “I have to go,” he rasps before stepping quickly out.

Ms McCall doesn’t cry. She sits down on the mattress of the Sheriff’s hospital bed, eyes damp and face stony.

She leaves eventually, and then it is just Stiles and Dad again, but Stiles can’t stop thinking about what he’s seen.

No one really knows anything, but everyone is willing to take up arms over this. For Stiles, and for Dad. They’re divided, and it’s not even their place to act, and yet they’re willing to throw themselves into harm’s way. More than that, they’re willing to do things that go against their nature – their beliefs – and that’s not what Stiles wants.

As stupid as his point sounded, Scott is right. Ms McCall is many things, but she is still a nurse, a healer. But Ms McCall is right too, because Scott is Scott, and rising at the edges of his mind, Stiles thinks he can see Scott’s easy smile, right there alongside the faint memory of his mother. That’s the way Scott should always be, sweet and caring and bright.

Those words, that desire to kill. That was not Scott. That should never _be_ Scott.

“I’ll watch over you,” Mom had promised, but what good did watching ever do?

Stiles is tired of watching. Stiles can do more than watch.

Stiles says his goodbyes to Dad. It’s only temporary, and Dad can’t even hear him, but he does it anyway.

Stiles finds Peter in his room at the housing complex. Peter is sitting on his bed, tucking the corner of a fresh sheet under the mattress. He looks up when he notices Stiles.

“There’s no place like home,” Stiles says.

A smile cuts across Peter’s face. He taps his heels together three times.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys have a good memory, or those last few lines will make no sense hahaha.


	17. Jane Doe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been gone for far too long. Sorry! Also sorry for the inevitable inconsistencies in plot or writing style that are sure to result from such a long hiatus! Thank you so much to those who've been reading and waiting in my absence!
> 
> Also, I am ashamed, but I have seen none of Season 3 yet, so I hope any canon character development doesn't jar too much with the way I'm writing!
> 
>  
> 
> **WARNING: non-con elements and references to past non-con may be triggering**

_Come home_

Those are the words in her pocket – or, they were. Those were the words in her pocket, in her message history, saved in the memory of her phone, repeated over and over again:

 _Will Wallis_  
2 Feb, 5:17 PM  
Come home

 _Will Wallis_  
30 Mar, 10:34 AM  
Come home

 _Will Wallis_  
24 May, 11:46 PM  
Please come home

 _Will Wallis_  
25 July, 12:28 AM  
Come home I know you can

 _Will Wallis_  
25 July, 3:10 AM  
I don’t know why you left or where you went but please please please come home

 _Will Wallis_  
1 Jan, 12:01 AM  
I miss you

She knows the words by heart. She’d read and re-read them, charging her phone at any unguarded electrical outlet she could find. She’d used them to light the dark spaces under freeways, to warm her fingers when the nights got cold, to soothe the pain in her joints and the gnawing hunger in her belly. Those words in her pocket are in her mind, and that’s why she still feels the phantom vibrations of a new text every day, even though her phone stopped working months ago.

How long has it been? She’s not sure. Months. At least a year. Maybe more. A long time. She doubts her phone would be receiving messages even if it still worked. Will’s probably forgotten her. How could he remember her when she can barely remember herself?

Sometimes she forgets her own name. Is she even herself anymore? What were her favourite foods? What were her favourite colours? Who was her family and who were her friends? It doesn’t matter anymore. Now, her favourite food is whatever she can find. The only colours she cares about are the colours that tell her how clean or filthy a surface is, how fresh or rotten a meal is. She has no family. Her friends are the ones that seem unlikely to rob her when she’s asleep, or worse.

But she remembers Will.

She remembers when she first hit the streets. She hadn’t yet realized that she could be tracked by the GPS of her phone. She had hitchhiked to an entirely new city, but apparently that hadn’t mattered to Will.

That was when she’d still been fastidiously clean, when she’d stopped at motels and hostels because sleeping in alleys or under piles of cardboard weren’t even options that crossed her mind.

She’d been sitting in a little cafe with free wi-fi and somewhat reasonable snack prices. The cafe had been filled with other twenty-somethings that had looked as haggard and worn as she had, though her fatigue had a decidedly different cause. From the window seat of that cafe she’d spotted Will.

Will had been standing on the opposite corner of the intersection, alternately scanning the street and consulting his smartphone. His gangly frame looked awkward in his oversized plaid shirt. His sneakers were dusty with road dirt. His thick glasses were perched half-way down the bridge of his nose, slipping as they were wont to do. His backpack was slung over one shoulder, patched with Boy Scout badges and sagging with age. His bright red hair was a beacon above the crowds that winked in and out of sight as if saying _stop, stop, stop_.

But she couldn’t stop. She’d booked it out the door. She made a habit of keeping her phone off thereafter. There wasn’t even a reason to keep carrying it, really. She’d go home one day when she could. She would. Except. There was something about holding on to that little brick of a cell phone that kept her sane. Or more sane. Like it was a tether to land. Like no matter how far she drifted out into the dark water, no matter how dense the fog became, she’d have this to fall back on, a line to pull her back to that flash of red hair, that pale face with the worry-wrinkled brow and the thin lips that shaped her name.

 _William Wallis_. She mouths his name now.

The waitress that’s been trying to unsubtly boot her out for the past hour gives her the hairy eyeball. She’s sitting in a shitty little diner where the coffee is brewed from the sludge scrapped out of gasoline tanks and sandwiches are filled with eggs of unspecified origin. Even for her severely degraded standards, this is low, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“Will Wallis,” she says aloud, not giving a flying fuck about the waitress.

If the waitress knows anything about history, she can assume that she’s talking about William Wallace. Or about _Braveheart._ Doesn’t matter. Will was blessed with the name because “it was an opportunity his dad couldn’t miss.” Mr Wallis was funny that way. Will never agreed, having grown up being called everything from “Willy-Wally” to “Walrus” – particularly hurtful when Will was in the pudgy stage of puberty.

She wonders what Will looks like now. She wonders if his broad shoulders have filled out. Has he grown a beard? Are there new freckles behind his ears? How gross are the calluses on his writing hand now? Has he graduated from university? Is he in post-grad? Does he have a new girlfriend? A fiancé? A wife? Does he think about her as often as she thinks about him? Does he think about her at all?

But she won’t have to wonder for much longer. Finally, finally, finally.

 _Come home_ , the words in her pocket, in her mind won’t haunt her for much longer, because soon, soon, soon, she will come home.

Everything is finally paying off. All the pain, all the time, all those fearful, lonely nights are paying off. The meager wages from odd jobs, the riskier money from not-so-legal errands, that cash that she slid into the registers of internet cafes all over America like coins into a slot machine. Today is her lucky day because today is the day she stops running.

She grins to herself and smoothes down her freshly washed hair. It’s like silk to her fingers, she’s so accustomed to tangles and dirt and worse. She paid for a motel room last night specifically so she could bathe and make herself presentable for human interaction. Judging by the waitress’s reactions, she still looks pretty close to gutter trash, but she smells like fucking citrus soap and sunshine.

She has to remind herself that there’s still a chance things won’t work out, but it’s hard to squash down the optimism when this is the best lead she’s had in forever. She feels like she’s on top of the world. She feels unstoppable. She feels so damn good it’s not even a chore to ignore the shadow standing outside the diner with its face pressed to the glass next to her head.

She waves the waitress over and the waitress grudgingly refills her empty mug with coffee. She watches the waitress stiffly retreat to the kitchen and she watches the steam rise from the fresh mug. She watches the time tick by on the clock and she waits. She does not acknowledge the slow scrape of broken fingernails across glass. She does not breathe a sigh of relief when the shadow retreats from the diner window to wander back into highway traffic.

At precisely 10 PM a man walks into the diner. She is sitting in the corner facing the door so she doesn’t need to turn her head to see that the man is here for her. He makes eye contact, he smiles, and he walks straight to her table and takes a seat across from her like he’s the manager of the diner, come to ask how she’s enjoying her meal.

The man is older than her and darkly handsome in the way that dangerous people often are. She feels like she’s been dropped into a crime novella when he extends a hand to shake hers and says, “You must be Jane Doe.”

There’s laughter in the man’s eyes like he’s sharing a joke with her and it takes a second for her to remember that ‘Jane Doe’ is her screen name. The smile she returns feels brittle, all of her earlier cheer gone cold under his predatory gaze, but she tries not to let it show.

“Sure, but what should I call you? Honestly, your screen name’s a little embarrassing to say in real life.”

“Call me Peter,” he says.

“Peter.” She rolls the name around in her mouth. She doesn’t like it. She waits in silence for the suddenly friendly waitress to bustle over to take Peter’s order. To the waitress’ disappointment, Peter declines her offer of coffee.

She doesn’t speak until she’s sure the waitress is gone and no one is paying attention to them. There’s only one waitress and a few customers. She and Peter are tucked into the back corner, alone.

“You said you could help me with my... problem,” she says in a low voice, trying and failing not to feel like one of the many back alley creeps she’s dealt with.

“I said I could be a helpful resource for individuals such as you,” Peter says, idly sliding a salt shaker across the table top, passing it from hand to hand.

She quirks her brow suspiciously. “Okay, prove it. Prove you even understand what I’m going through.”

Peter stills the salt shaker with a finger. He looks up at her and smiles. Or, more accurately, the smile he’s already wearing takes on a more wicked, genuine slant. She swears she sees a flash of fangs, but then Peter is looking out the window. Peter is looking out the window onto the highway and staring directly at the shadow. And that’s enough. That’s enough to convince her, but he doesn’t stop there.

“A girl died out on this highway several decades ago,” Peter says, and icy terror trickles down her spine. She wants to slap a hand over Peter’s mouth, but she’s frozen. From very far away she hears Peter continue.

“Officials ruled it to be a hit and run which isn’t too far off, but a closer investigation would have revealed a much more sinister story.”

 _Stop,_ she wants to say as she retreats further and further into herself. _Stop_.

“You see,” Peter says, letting his eyes slide away from the window, “this poor girl was teenaged and pregnant, and she lived in the time before reality television. You can imagine her father wasn’t too happy with her.”

She locks eyes with Peter and refuses to look away. For all of Peter’s smiles, his eyes are as cold as the fingers curled around the edge of her jaw.

“So she died, but luckily – or unluckily – she had a special something in her. Something special that the three of us share.”

She can’t stop the sob that escapes her. She refuses to look away from Peter’s awful, teasing eyes, but she can still see it in the corner of her vision, the dark smudge of blood-matted hair, the reflection of twisted limbs in the window glass. The cold fingers on her jaw tighten, broken nails digging into her flesh like serrated knives. She can feel the flat stare of unseeing eyes boring into the side of her skull. She can taste the sickly sweet odour of its breath as it mouths voicelessly against her cheek.

“Stop,” she croaks out, fighting the instinct to wrench the thing off of her. The light above their table pops and goes out. She can’t breathe. “Make it stop.”

Surprisingly, Peter does. Peter looks – he looks _directly at the thing_. He looks at the thing and she can feel the thing’s eyes rolling slowly in their sockets to meet Peter’s gaze. She can’t comprehend what happens next.

“This one’s not for you,” Peter says, calm as can be, and the thing just – leaves. It releases her jaw and disentangles its limbs from hers. It slinks off the seat and curls up in a booth on the far side of the diner next to an oblivious truck driver who’s half asleep in his soup. It watches Peter like a fucking scolded _cat_ , and she just – she doesn’t know how she feels.

There’s. There’s definitely something like elation because, fucking _falafels_ , Peter doesn’t just understand her problem. He can fix it. _He can fix it_. This just now was the most horrific, most effective demonstration of how much he can _fix it_. But at the same time, she can’t believe it. She’s so close, and this is too good to be true. There’s got to be a thousand strings attached and she shudders to think of what Peter might ask of her. But...

“You want it to stop,” Peter says, the smile finally gone from his face. He looks contrite, like he knows he’s overstepped his bounds. Peter reaches across the table to hold her hands in his, but her hands are still wrapped around the mug of coffee. The coffee is cold and murky and its surface ripples with the trembling of her body.

Peter peels her hands away from the mug. His hands are warm and steady, pink and healthy next to her cold and grey ones. He folds his fingers over hers like living soil filling an open grave.

“What would you give to make it all stop?” Peter asks.

She’s choking. There are so many words she wants to say, so many she’s never been able to.

She thinks about the night that turned her life to shit. She thinks about being held down, about cigarette smoke in her face, about the abrasion of denim and zipper teeth along her thighs, about a heavy, disgusting weight on top of her, inside of her. She thinks about wishing so badly to be anywhere else, anyone else, and opening her eyes to – to _everything_.

She thinks about knowing too much, feeling too much, so much that it all clogged in her throat. Bile and sickness and words that she never lets escape.

 _Keep quiet_ , she’d thought, that night and every night after. _Keep quiet. Don’t be seen. Don’t be heard. Don’t make it worse._

Only, that had never worked, had it? Not with that man. Not with the awful thing he did to her. Not with the frightening, awful things she could suddenly see all around her.

She’d run, but that hadn’t helped either. She couldn’t out run the ghosts that lingered in cemeteries and dark hallways. She couldn’t out run the phantom hands that crawled across her skin like so many five legged spiders. The ghosts were all around her. The ghosts were carried inside of her.

 _Keep quiet,_ she’d thought, but she thinks now about the words in her pocket, in her mind. She thinks about being able to pick up a phone – finally, finally, finally – to make a call, about shaping that enduring, endearing name in her mouth and hearing her own name in answer.

“Anything,” she says at last. “I would give anything.”

Peter nods solemnly. He takes her by the hand and leads her out of the diner, settling her tab with a few bills as they pass the register. Distantly, she observes the scowl on the waitress’ face as they leave.

She’s stirred by the cool night air as they cross the parking lot, but a numb determination persists and she docilely follows Peter. She should probably be more wary than she is, following a man who’s practically a stranger into the dark like this, but this is it. This is her last chance, the last bet she’ll place on any horse. It had better be the right one, because she doesn’t think she can go on lost and looking for any more solutions. No more libraries. No more so-called haunted houses. No more ridiculous internet message boards. No more so-called experts. No more dead ends. She’s worn thinner than her ragged cotton shirt. She’s full of more holes than her canvas shoes.

They’re in the middle of nowhere, a truck stop on a highway with nothing around for miles but the diner, a gas station, and a motel. To her slowly mounting anxiety, Peter leads her towards the motel.

The motel is nearly derelict, whereas the diner is an old, well-worn sock that’s just had the misfortune of being worn on one too many road trips. The diner’s windows are wide and well-lit, incandescent light spilling out onto the asphalt it shares with the gas station, a cheery lantern that wayward travellers stop at. The motel is splashed red with the light of its neon sign proclaiming VACANCY, and she misses the ill-tempered waitress already, but she keeps walking.

The motel parking lot only has four dusty vehicles spotting the tiny rectangle of asphalt. The motel is curled around the parking lot like a dead shrimp, only one story, and as far as she can tell, there are seven rooms which seem excessive for such a shithole in a dusty plain. It’s exactly the kind of place for illicit activity, runaways, and all sorts of shady characters, but she’s spent enough time in the underworld to not be overly alarmed.

She follows Peter to a room marked with the number two, fingering the switchblade she keeps in her pocket on the off chance that it’ll be useful against someone who has the power to tell shadowy scary things to fuck off.

She’s not sure what she was expecting to find in the motel room. Maybe a temporary sex bondage dungeon or some freaky witchcraft shit, but when Peter swings the door open there’s nothing out of the ordinary. The room is dark, lit only by the neon red light filtering through the blinds of the window and smelling of cigarette smoke and cheap cleaning agents. It’s populated with basic furniture: dresser, old television, bedside table, lamp, and a queen sized bed decked out in sheets that could’ve been ripped from the terrible wallpaper coating the walls.       

She squints into the dark to get a glimpse of the ensuite bathroom but double takes at the figure she suddenly notices perched on the bed.

“Who–“ she starts; stops.

She hears Peter flip the light switch by the door, but unsurprisingly, the lights aren’t working right now.

There’s a boy perched on the bed, legs crossed and back hunched. Or, not a boy – a young man, maybe, once, could’ve been. The thing – but not a thing, not this one, not this one with such bright, sharp, _knowing_ eyes – is looking at her.

She can’t move. She’s frozen by fear or something else, she’s not sure, but she’s frozen and the boy kicks his legs gracelessly off the bed. He moves nothing like the things she’s seen, he doesn’t even move like Peter. He moves like – he moves like a person, like some kid she could’ve bumped into on the sidewalk. There’s nothing calculated about his gait, nothing unnatural or grotesque or predatory about his movements, but she knows, knows, knows that this boy-man-thing is the catch she didn’t foresee.

The young man stands up from the bed and she can see him more clearly now in the slated light. His hair is buzzed short. He’s wearing muddy clothes. His bright eyes are fixed on her, shadowed by strong arching brows. His lips are pulled down in a grim line. His chin is exaggerated by the dark smears that drip down from the corners of his mouth, marking him like a ventriloquist’s doll.

The young man says something, probably, but she can’t hear him. She’s never been able to hear any of them and now is no different. His lips move, stretching the dried trails on his face, revealing the red staining the grooves of his teeth. There’s more on his shirt, a rusty red that spreads out from his solar plexus like the petals of a flower, the center marked by a gaping wound. The edges of the wound look raw, and the blood is dark and old, crusting like it has been left untended for too long.

He approaches her and she has enough time to think about how ugly all the reds in the room are, all hurtful, garish shades. She has enough time to think about the red halo of curls peeking above the crowd in her memory, a bright spot of comfort. She has enough time to think about the dead phone in her pocket, the words buried in a broken plastic brick, the name she wants to say and the name she wants to hear.

 _I want to go home_ , she thinks. And then she stops.        

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My end notes section is messed up...


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've been taking forever to update, but look, we've broken the 50k mark! Thank you for staying with this story anyway. Enjoy.
> 
> Special thanks to [shingo_the_pest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shingo_the_pest/pseuds/shingo_the_pest), my faithful reader turned amazing beta/cheerleader!

Later, Stiles will think of the transition from half-death to half-life like this:

He will imagine a sieve, a wide pan of worn mesh sifting through water. At first, the water is a gentle stream, clear and without even the tiniest contaminants. The water is pure and uniform in composition, its progress so smooth that the sieve might as well be sifting air or be air itself for all the difference its presence makes. Then somewhere a dam bursts and the water changes with sudden violence. The stream broadens and surges up, the surface white with the froth of rapid water and the depths a murky darkness made opaque with dirt cut from sandy banks. A wall of debris rushes forth, rocks and leaves and seeds and sticks, animals and whole trees swept down by the greedy waves of the river.

The sieve is unchanged, still a pan of worn mesh, and it is unaccustomed and unprepared for the tide that charges into it. It is clogged with mud and stones. It is pierced with branches that tangle and twist in the current. Beetles are disassembled in its grid, and fish are scaled and flayed and pulped under the pressure of the torrent. The sieve is lost amongst the detritus it filters, and Stiles is not sure if he is the water or the sieve or the beetle or the fish.

In the moment that Stiles takes his first conscious breath he does not have the ability to put it in such terms because all he knows is pain. Lots of pain. Unfamiliar nerves scream about unfamiliar sensations, and it’s almost enough to make him regret what he’s done.

Almost.

When the pain subsides – or not so much subsides as becomes a familiar constant he can mostly ignore – Stiles opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees is the sky. It is very blue and looks no different from any blue sky he has seen before. It’s not very interesting to look at, but Stiles doesn’t really know what else to do. That he is able to open his eyes seems miraculous in itself when Stiles doesn’t know how he did it, and doesn’t know how to do anything else with his – his new body.

Wires seem to connect and snap into place, hidden programs ticking into activity as a new operating system whirs to life within its organic casing. Except it’s nothing so cold and artificial. Stiles is hyperaware of the pounding of his new heart, of the laboured rise and fall of his ribs as his diaphragm stretches and contracts. He is aware of the churning of his empty, begging stomach, of the thick saliva sticking the tongue to the hard palate. His extremities – particularly his feet – are cold and numb. His skin is tight, sticky, chaffed, pulled uncomfortably taut over his bent knees, and something – hair – itches at his collarbones. There is an acute pain in the awkward angle of his neck, and a dull throb that beats in time to the bump of his forehead against a cold window pane.  

Through a series of small painful accidents, Stiles slowly takes control of his new flesh, adapting to the fine action of opening and closing his eyes, of twitching his neck left and right, of flaring his nostrils and swallowing the spit pooling in the pouches of his cheeks. He becomes aware of his surroundings. Peter’s pickup truck. Peter sitting in the driver’s seat next to him. The reek of sweat.

There’s a sudden cessation of sound that Stiles’ hadn’t noticed was there, the ticking of the cooling engine, and then Peter’s low voice. “You’re awake.”

Somehow Stiles manages to translate thought into spoken word. “Yes,” he says. He thinks he should feel more excited than he is about this, about speaking, about being present in the physical world. His voice is high and breathy, foreign. It grates on him.

“How do you feel?” Peter asks. He’s teasing. Stiles knows Peter knows how he feels. “Don’t worry, it gets easier each time.”

Stiles wants to ask what Peter means by that. Easier each time he breathes? Each time he blinks? Each time he takes a body?

Stiles shies away from that last thought, instead finding the strength to lift his head from the now oily glass of the passenger side window. “How long have I been out?”

“Long enough,” Peter says, nodding his head towards the windshield. Stiles looks and sees that they are parked in the alley behind the pack’s housing complex. “The welcome wagon’s waiting for us inside,” Peter continues cheerfully as he swings open his door and climbs gracefully out. He rounds the front of the truck to open Stiles’ door, resting a hand on the roof of the pickup and angling his head suggestively. “Shall I carry you over the threshold?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

Peter shrugs. “Suit yourself, but I wouldn’t recommend dawdling outside, nice day or not. You should know that my dear housemates are rather beastly around unexpected guests.”

“Just give me a goddamned minute,” Stiles spits, whipping his – _Jane’s –_ ragged backpack in Peter’s general direction. The backpack doesn’t smack into Peter’s chest as he had intended, instead rolling onto the dusty ground with a quiet thump. He’s surprised he has enough coordination to manage that much.

Peter finally goes away, scooping up the backpack before disappearing into the housing complex with the bang of the screen door. If the inhabitants weren’t already aware of Stiles’ presence, they must be by now. He only hopes that whatever web of lies Peter is spinning isn’t too difficult for Stiles to remember. He’s suspicious enough without fumbling his own personal information. They probably should’ve planned this better, but Stiles didn’t have the stomach to think about it all too deeply _then_ , and he still can’t dwell on it _now,_ though technically he now possess – _ha! –_ a stomach.

Stiles’ very real, very physical – very _stolen_ – stomach clenches painfully. Whether in hunger or rebellion, Stiles can’t tell, but it motivates him to slowly rotate his body in his seat until his legs dangle out the open door. The drop to the ground seems strangely far and his thighs are rounder than he’s used to seeing them–

Stiles lets himself slide off the seat and out of the truck. He tries to lock his knees, but they buckle and he goes down like a marionette with cut strings, falling painfully on his front. At least he didn’t scrape up his palms, having been too slow to soften the landing with them. The dirt is warm from the sun and gritty under his cheek.

The struggle to stand on two feet is embarrassingly long and difficult, but Stiles refuses to call for Peter’s help, not wanting Peter’s skin to be the first he ever touches. It’s sentimental and stupid, but somehow still important, and Stiles tries to improve his humour by narrating his struggle as an animal documentary might be narrated. He certainly feels like a newborn horse, freshly foaled from the Ford as he is.

_The new born Mustang rests in the shadow of his mother, confounded by a barrage of new stimuli. The young foal must find his feet soon – quickly, lest he be abandoned by his herd or worse._

He takes soft, even breaths that seem disproportionate to his exertion, each inhale carrying the fading taste and scent of the truck’s exhaust. He keeps trying.

_While Mustangs have few natural predators, young foals are easy prey for mountain lions._

When he is finally upright on two unsteady legs, the dried sweat on his brow has been refreshed with more cold beads, sticking strands of long hair to his skin and feeding them past his chapped lips. He tries to spit the hair out and is rewarded with a dribble of drool on his chin. He tries to wipe away the drool with his sleeve and nearly punches himself in the jaw, making his teeth clip the tip of his tongue. The copper tang of blood settles between the buds on his tongue, and no amount of swallowing seems to drain the taste away. He can feel his face automatically scrunching with frustration and throws himself into the labour of walking forwards.

His walk is more of a stumble, actually a series of falls he stops step by step, left, right, left, right, until it’s more of a chore to come to a full stop than it is to keep walk-stumbling onwards. The screen door is a pull door, and Stiles thinks he’ll have better luck walking straight through the mesh than scrounging up the coordination and speed to operate it. Even worse, the door is at the top of a couple of crooked concrete steps. Stiles is about as likely to climb these as he is to climb a stairway to heaven.  

Stiles resigns himself to glaring hatefully at the doorway until he hears the murmur of an approaching voice.

“She’s just feeling under the weather, that’s all,” Peter is saying. Then Peter is there, holding the screen door open for Stiles and arching a brow. “Stella,” Peter says, “welcome to our humble abode. I apologize for the mess, I’m sure it looks more like a pig sty than a wolf den.”

Stiles doesn’t acknowledge Peter’s help. He carefully lifts one foot after another up the steps until he finally crosses the threshold. He’s a little proud about that.

He doesn’t bother with assessing the state of Peter’s humble abode; too busy keeping his eyes on the ground, watching for obstacles. He makes sure he doesn’t trip on anything other than air and follows Peter’s heels as Peter leads him from the tiled floors of the kitchen to the scuffed wooden floors of the main room. He stops with his toes at the edge of an ugly Persian rug and is momentarily distracted by a balding patch and the scent of old popcorn until Peter starts speaking again.

“Stella,” Peter says, “meet my pack: Isaac, Erica, Boyd, and my nephew and Alpha, Derek.”

_To a lesser extent, Grizzly bears and wolves may also prey upon Mustangs, and this unfortunate youngster has stumbled upon dangerous territory._

It’s difficult to reconcile what he has seen as a messenger – a ghost – with what he recalls of his memories; memories which seem to come and go, sometimes slipping between his fingers and sometimes filming across his vision like cataracts. He knows the memories are his, but they don’t feel like it. Not when they come in fragments which give him more questions than answers. So he has seen Isaac chatting shyly with a girl in a faux French cafe, and he has seen Erica mischievously painting Boyd’s nails as he naps, and Boyd carrying on, unconcerned with the fuchsia of his pinky finger or the ruby of his thumb. He has seen Derek pulverizing tree trunks at night, and quietly ushering his pack into the den for movie nights, and sealing a dying garden in the attic with the solemn click of a latch.

He has seen these things but they are so different from the debris of memories collected on the shore of his conscious mind. He remembers Isaac sneering under the flicker of a fluorescent light, Isaac’s hands rough on his arm, pinning the limb to a tabletop strewn with medical supplies as Isaac stitched a neat row through his skin and mocked his human weakness. He remembers Erica wetting his shoulder with silent tears, face stubbornly set under smeared mascara after she threw her luggage into the backseat and ordered him to drive, ignoring the angry screaming of her mother. He remembers the way Boyd roared as he tackled some horrific creature to the ground, fighting and winning and standing powerfully over its still form. He remembers Derek laughing. A small surprised sound, dry and short, but genuine. And the way Derek had looked at him with an amused smirk before turning back to the soapy dishes in the sink. And the way it had felt like Stiles had pulled a muscle in his cheek from smiling so wide. And the way something had curled tight in his chest. And the sun had set. And the kitchen had been warm.

From what he can tell, much has changed in his absence, some of it as a result of his absence, and these differences he can’t trace only exaggerate the disconnect he feels. He wants to remember everything, but he’s afraid that he won’t. He wants to pick up where he left off, but he knows he can’t. He wants to be _Stiles,_ but Stiles is dead and what he’s done doesn’t change that, no matter how much he wishes otherwise.

Stiles takes a calming breath to center himself. When he finally looks up from the Persian rug, he is immediately confronted by the vision of Derek, up close and personal. Actually, Derek isn’t that close. Derek is standing at a socially acceptable distance, halfway across the room, but his presence seems to have great range and force, rudely shoving up against Stiles with unexpected potency, so much stronger than any of the times Stiles has watched him as a messenger, and so much stronger than any memory could prepare him for.

Derek’s gaze is piercing in its intensity and Stiles swallows reflexively. He makes his eyes drop to Derek’s collarbone before they pop. “Hi,” Stiles says lamely.

After an uncomfortable silence, Isaac clears his throat, drawing Stiles’ attention to where he slouches on Derek’s left. “Peter tells us you’re a... work associate.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says.

There’s another silence. Stiles realizes he’s meant to provide more information, but hesitates to volunteer any when he doesn’t know anything. He can feel Derek’s glare boring through his forehead.

“So Peter _can_ play nice. And here I thought he was joking about dealing with artefacts.” Erica smirks. Her eyes rove over Stiles’ body and he twitches with discomfort. “I bet you help him polish his antiques all the time.”

“What?” Stiles can feel his face flushing and the sensation is so strange he almost misses Peter’s lecherous grin. The bastard. “No– I’m a– I’m a consultant. On supernatural... stuff.”

“Supernatural stuff, huh.” Erica leans forward over the arm of the sofa, somehow looming predatorily from her seated position. “Like what?”

Stiles glances at Peter, but Peter is locked with Derek in a silent battle of eye contact and eyebrow fluctuations. No help from that corner, so Stiles decides to stick with what he knows. “Spirits.”

“Spirits,” Erica echoes, bemused, at the same time Isaac asks, “you mean like ghosts?”

“Yeah.”

Erica turns to Isaac. “That’s a thing? Really?”

Isaac nods. “Jen and her family, remember?”

“Your girlfriend’s crazy.” Erica snorts. “Your girlfriend’s family is crazy too, bunch of jumped up carnies.”

“Watch it.” Isaac’s eyes narrow.

“Why are you here with Peter?” Boyd speaks softly, but his low voice carries over whatever Erica was about to say. Boyd stands on Derek’s right, posture relaxed but attention wholly on Stiles. Boyd’s question seems to draw Derek out of whatever silent argument he was having with Peter, because Stiles can feel the doubled intensity of his scrutiny.

“Stella is here to help me locate some–” Peter begins, but he’s cut off by Derek’s low growl.

“I,” Stiles starts, uncertain of what an acceptable answer would be. “I need to help my dad,” Stiles ends up admitting, the truth of it tightening his throat. “And to do that I need to... I need to be here to figure some things out.”

The explanation is simple and vague and Stiles is sure it won’t be enough, but he doesn’t know what else he can say to convince the pack that he’s not a threat. “I’m not a threat?” Stiles tries.

Erica snickers, and when Stiles chances a peek at Derek’s face, there’s a scowl cut so deep into his features that Stiles expects to see blood. “I like her,” Erica says. “Let’s keep her.”

Stiles can’t hide his surprise.

“She’s not a pet,” Derek says, finally turning his glare from Stiles to Erica.

“No, but I promise I’ll feed her and take her out for walkies if you let her stay.”

“Erica.” Derek’s tone is warning.

“I hate being the only girl in the house. You guys are all slobs.” Isaac mutters something under his breath about mechanic’s grease on the walls, but Erica ignores him, rolling off the sofa towards Stiles. Standing with bare feet, they are of a height and Erica leans her face inquisitively towards Stiles’, her perfume a breath of spice. “Besides, does the itty bitty human look dangerous to you?”

Derek’s face darkens imperceptibly. “No, but we were wrong before.”

Everyone in the room stiffens. Erica steps back, at a loss for words.

“Please,” Stiles says, wincing as he breaks the dead silence. “I won’t be here for very long. I don’t intend to harm you or your pack.” Stiles tries to be as clear and direct as he can, willing Derek to read the sincerity in his body language. It shouldn’t be hard. Stiles hasn’t learned to control his new body, and he knows every reaction and emotion is displayed, raw and undisguised. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Stiles’ lip twitches up in a slight smile, “maybe Peter, but not you.”

The tension breaks. Erica laughs. Peter’s face is unreadable. Derek’s eyes are a bit round with what might be surprise, but his hackles have dropped and his jaw unclenched. He nods curtly. “You can stay in one of the empty units of the complex. No one but pack lives here. If you need anything–”

“You can come find me,” Erica cheerfully interjects.

“–don’t bother me.” Derek exhales heavily. “You’re a... guest,” Derek says, like the concept is foreign, “but that only entitles you to some space–”

“And food,” Boyd adds quietly.

“–and nothing else.” Derek scans the faces of his pack before stalking forward, closing the distance between him and Stiles in two long strides. He looks down at Stiles with cold eyes and speaks with an even colder voice. “Whatever business you’re here for, keep it clean. If you get into trouble, that’s your problem, but if you make it ours, understand that _you_ become _my_ problem. Are we clear?”

Stiles shivers, from fear, proximity, or relief, he doesn’t know, and smiles crookedly up at Derek. “Crystal, sir. Clear as blue skies, clear as clear can be. I won’t rock the boat, O Captain, mi Capitán.”

Derek pauses, frowns, and then inclines his head towards Boyd. Boyd nods and Derek departs, walking briskly from the room and out of the house if the slam of the front door is any indication. Stiles wonders if he’s going to the Hale house.

With Derek gone, the rest of the pack loosens dramatically. Isaac’s bearing takes on a different tone, his slouch turning from self-conscious to relaxed, and his smile turning from timid to openly amused as he perches on the arm of the sofa. Boyd rounds the sofa, turning on the TV and claiming the prime spot in the center of the cushions, stretching his arms out over the back of the sofa like a lounging bear. Erica sidles up to Stiles, slipping her arm through his and practically purring with victory. She pulls Stiles onto the sofa with her, squeezing them in between Boyd and Isaac even though the other half of the sofa is unoccupied, and begins enumerating her plan to strengthen the feminine presence within the house.

Stiles sits, stunned by the sudden camaraderie and the abrupt change of atmosphere. Only Erica is talking to him – talking at him, really – but Isaac doesn’t seem bothered by Stiles being squished up against his side, and Boyd is a solid wall that Erica leans back against. It’s needlessly cramped but bizarrely cozy. Warm. Nice.

“–and it gets a bit chilly around here, so you’ll need a better sweater than that potato sack. Don’t worry, I’ll help you shop, okay?”

Stiles nods and continues nodding at appropriate intervals which seem to satisfy Erica’s torrent of goodwill as she firmly tucks Stiles under her wing. Someone shoves a half full bowl of stale popcorn into his arms and a patchy old afghan is thrown over everyone’s legs. A movie is already playing, the closed captions turned on in habitual submission to Erica’s continued chatter. Stiles looks towards the grand armchair in the corner, expecting Peter’s preening smirk, but Peter is not there.  


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All hail Shingo. I would have no motivation without Shingo.

Stiles is standing in a cloud. There are no scalloped edges to mark its shape and he has no trouble discerning figures near or far, but there is a dreamy quality to the little bathroom he stands in, everything misty and soft and silver limned in refracted light. The beam of early morning sunlight that slants down from the tiny window cut high and narrow in the wall provides all the necessary illumination for this sanctuary. The white walls perspire and the white tiled floors glisten with fallen beads of condensation. The air is warm and speckled with motes of water, so thick in the air that they look like the loveliest static snow. Each tiny sphere is perfect and lights up under the beam of sunlight. They swirl and spiral like a school of fish with every swoop of Stiles’ hand, and Stiles is awed by the display. The world moves for him.

The squeal of hinges in the adjoining room startles Stiles and he draws his hands to his chest guiltily, only to jerk them back when they bump against the unexpected mounds of his body’s breasts. Perturbed, Stiles quickly finishes drying his body, the towel as coarse as burlap on his over-sensitive skin. Like with his shower, he tries to accomplish his task with a minimum of looking and touching, feeling cold and shivery despite the hot air billowing around him. At least while standing on a rug, attempting the task is easier than when standing in a slippery shower stall. His greatest obstacle now is drying the long hair. This he gives up on quickly, resorting to piling the hair on his head under a messily wrapped towel.

The faint scent of a fruity shampoo hangs in the air, artificial, but clean and heightened by the sweltering atmosphere. Stiles leans forward against the sink to wipe away the condensation on the mirror. He stops with one hand on the cool glass. His hand is absurdly small. Stiles lifts it away from the mirror, leaving a smudged handprint on the foggy surface that slowly bleeds trails of water onto the counter below.

Stiles’ hands are calloused and dry, even fresh from the shower, the backs tanned and leathery from sun exposure. His palms are etched with unfamiliar creases and the capillaries beneath thick skin diffuse into cloudy reds and pinks. Blue-green veins cut through the splotches of colour like subtle bolts of lightning, joining the map of criss-crosses and sudden ends. Stiles wipes his clammy palm on the towel wrapped around his waist and leaves the mirror clouded.

Stiles tosses his used towels over the hamper lip, leaving the hair towel draped around his neck to keep water from wetting his clothes. He pulls on the sweatpants Erica lent him, buttons up an over-sized flannel shirt he can’t imagine Erica ever wearing, and zips up an equally large hoodie. The shapeless clothing is worn soft and comfortable, and Stiles is glad Erica only protested a little when he requested sexless loungewear. He knows an enforced shopping trip is imminent in his future. With a last glance at the coloured blur in the mirror, Stiles exits to the adjoining bedroom he knows Peter is now waiting in.

Stiles isn’t wrong. Peter lounges in a chair in the small room, a dusty wicker thing tucked in the corner between a wardrobe and a writing desk. The sheet that had covered it is folded neatly on the desk. All the other furniture remains ghostly, draped with white sheets just starting to yellow at the edges, as he’d expect of a room that’s not normally in use in a unit of the housing complex that rarely sees visitors. The end unit the pack favours as their den only has three bedrooms already occupied by Isaac, Peter, and Derek. Stiles has been allowed to stay in the neighbouring unit, the one that Erica and Boyd sometimes use when they don’t bother to return to their downtown flat.

Peter looks strangely vivid, a patch of darkness and texture and detail the rest of the room lacks. He’s wearing a t-shirt, black with a deep v-neck. He’s more casually dressed than Stiles has ever seen him. He manages to look bored without fiddling or tapping his feet impatiently, fanning his hands as if trying to banish the traces of Stiles’ hot shower. “Trying to steam-clean the wrinkles out of your new skin?”

Stiles doesn’t react. His control over the body has grown exponentially. The body is a treacherous thing, to yield so easily. That’s not to say he’s a dancing gazelle, but he didn’t fall in the shower and he hasn’t bruised his hip more than three times on any table corner. “Where were you?”

“Ah, did you miss me? I was only gone for one night.”

One night complete with a pack dinner and a sleepless stupor. The strangely easy camaraderie Stiles experienced watching the movie with Isaac, Erica, and Boyd, seemed to evaporate during the dinner, probably because of Derek and Peter’s noticeable absence. From what Stiles has seen as a messenger-ghost-thing, Derek never misses pack dinners. Derek’s empty chair seemed to cast a long shadow over the cramped dining room, leaving Isaac to fill the silence with stilted small talk while Erica watched Stiles like she would happily eat him.

The end of dinner brought no relief. When the others retired, Stiles had no choice but to retreat to his new room, certain that the others wouldn’t appreciate a stranger prowling their den at night. In the privacy of his dusty room and en suite bathroom, Stiles became acquainted with the wonders of the human body. Everything from sneezing, to developing hives and watery eyes, to taking care of bodily functions, all the frequent and messy inconveniences Stiles had forgotten, but made worse because they weren’t really _his_. Stiles has since become a master of splitting his attention to preserve his sanity with some level of his consciousness handling the needs of the body while the rest of him pretends it isn’t happening. He suspects that he’s always had a knack for living in denial.

The majority of the night was spent polishing the floor of his room with his pacing as he slowly worked himself into a trance. Despite the weight of fatigue – which he feels even now – sleep was impossible when his nerves ached like they’d been abused by a cheese grater. Instead he catalogued the shadows cast by the incandescence of the ceiling light, and – he grudgingly admits – hoped Peter would show his ugly mug so he could just _do something_.  

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Stiles says and frowns. “I just want to get things moving. It’s already been seven nights since we found Dad and... The sooner I’m out of... here, the better.”

“You can speak freely. Everyone’s still asleep.”

“Okay, well Dad’s been– he’s been asleep for long enough, and the sooner I’m out of this– this _body_ , the better.”

Peter sighs. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

“This isn’t some sort of holiday, Peter.”

“How about an all expenses paid business conference? I’ve already put together a schedule of events for your entertainment.”

Stiles takes a calming breath, a big in-and-out. Peter would think of it that way. Peter had treated the whole situation like a hunt for antiques, unfazed as he drove them into the next county to body-snatch the poor girl. He can imagine Peter’s process: scout, research, evaluate, bid. Peter already had someone in mind for Stiles when Stiles came to him for assistance, making the whole process disturbingly quick and easy. The premeditation of it all hasn’t escaped Stiles’ notice, but somehow it matters less now than it did all those weeks ago. The burn scar on Peter’s palm still looks shiny and new, but Stiles doesn’t feel like the same person who accidentally put it there.

Stiles knows he should be suspicious of Peter now that he seems to be slotting so neatly into Peter’s plans, but Stiles finds it difficult to believe that anyone can orchestrate events so perfectly. If anything, Peter’s just an opportunist who shapes events to his advantage as they happen. It was Stiles who sought Peter’s help in finding Dad; it was Stiles who insisted on overtaxing himself, running himself into a ragged ghost the night they found Dad; it was Stiles who came to Peter looking for a body. Peter will help or do harm when it suits him, and Peter will do nothing when _that_ suits him. So it’s not Peter’s fault that Stiles feels like a parasite that’s too big for the skin its burrowed into, but it’s a situation that Peter milks for all its worth.

“I’m only going to be here for as long as it takes to help Dad. To fix whatever the hell needs to be fixed in this goddamned town. I told you already.”

“All for your father,” Peter says, “only for your father.”

“Yes,” Stiles says, fixing his eyes on the cobweb by Peter’s shoulder. There is nothing in Peter’s face, but the blankness only makes it easier for Stiles to imagine he sees accusation and a sly, knowing satisfaction.

In those hours he waited to sink into a body his edges had been fraying, the outlines of his fingers a blur, his limbs running translucent when the wind blew just a little too hard. His memories, too, had been returning; slowly, like fossils unearthed from layers and layers of dust. Ridges of rock revealing ridges of bone, jagged shapes dusted and smoothed and polished into the shape of something that once lived. The skeleton of his past had been rising up in bits and pieces, far from complete even now, but waiting in the dark motel room it had been enough to plant a foreign, curling ugliness inside him. Thoughts that had been ignored in the dark, thoughts that had drifted over the surface of his mind those nights he spent curled at the foot of his father’s bed had begun to catch and rot on those memory-bones.

 “You don’t have to lie. Your time was so short, and second chances are so very seductive,” Peter says. “You don’t have to feel ignoble just because your motivations are less than pure.”

Stiles meets Peter’s eyes and watches the light mist of Peter’s breath in the cold air. Stiles takes a calming breath, feeling the chill of the air bite his borrowed lungs. “I’m doing this for my dad,” Stiles says. “I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, I’m not like you. I won’t _be_ like you.”

Peter doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then he leans back in the wicker chair, crossing his legs and letting his hands settle neatly on his lap. “Very well,” he says. “What do you plan to do?”

Stiles thinks for a moment, rubbing absently at his arms to warm them up. “The woods. We’ll definitely have to check out the woods. Somehow, we’ll have to get Isaac or Derek – probably Isaac, I don’t see Mr Frowny Face being much help – to show us where Dad was found in the woods. We can do that today, and then I guess we can check for clues or something at my house later.”

“Okay,” Peter says, “have fun.” He stands up and brushes imaginary dust from his thighs. Stiles frowns. “Surprised? It’s presumptuous of you to assume I’m at your beck and call.”

“ _Beck and_ –I didn’t,” _assume_ , Stiles means to say, except he did. “You’re the one who’s all freaked out about the woods.”

“You overestimate my concern. Besides, I’m busy today.”

“Busy,” Stiles echoes, agitated. “Doing what?”

“Business.”

“Business,” Stiles repeats, belatedly kicking himself for stupidly parroting. “But– I’m your– this _is_ your business!”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Peter says, throwing Stiles’ earlier words back at him. “You’ve made your purpose here very clear.”

Stiles scowls. “I don’t get you.”

“You’ve said many hurtful things to me, Stiles.” Peter pouts exaggeratedly. “I can be a charitable man when I want to be, but no one’s pockets are bottomless. Certainly not mine. I promised you life, once. Now you have it – as much of it as you’ve been willing to take of it – and I have kept my word. You forget that I am not – and never have been – obligated to give you _anything_.”

Stiles clenches his jaw as Peter starts walking to the door. He’s annoyed. More than he should be. Peter’s right, but Stiles still wants to punch him in the face. It probably wouldn’t be wise, not now that Peter can punch back. “You never said– where were you? Did you–” Stiles scans the back of Peter’s neck for signs of bruising or blood. He doesn’t see any, but Peter’s left arm seems to hang a little more stiffly than usual. “Did you get in a fight with Derek?”

“I believe Boyd is my keeper, not you,” Peter says. The mist of his breath seems to hang in the cold air long after he leaves the room.

It’s only when Stiles returns to the bathroom to toss his hair towel in the hamper that he realizes how cold it is. The mirror is opaque with frost. The walls are glazed with a film of ice. Stiles backs out of the bathroom and stumbles into the wicker chair. He huddles in the warmth of residual body heat and holds his head in his hands.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the chapter. This was really hard to write for some reason :/
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please review!


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